


Lightning Hot (Your Coffee, That Is)

by Thundersnow (pieprincess_andthe_fallenangel)



Series: Break the ice Between Us [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, BAMF Barry, BAMF Leonard Snart, BAMF Lisa Snart, Blow Jobs, Bottom Barry, Cisco and Caitlin bicker a lot, Episode: s02e03 Family of Rogues, First Dates, Fluff, Humor, Len doesn't know that Barry is the Flash, Len is happy, Leonard Snart isn't a criminal, Lewis Snart's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mentions of Panic Attacks, Metahumans, Minor Cisco Ramon/Lisa Snart, Pining, Protective Leonard Snart, Rim job, Second-Hand Embarrassment, Secret Identity, Semi-Public Sex, Series Spoilers, Sexual Tension, Smut, Snart Family Feels, Top Len, Topping from the Bottom, Various Kinks, Violence, and they're both adorable, coldflash - Freeform, hints at depression, mostly canon to season 1, one sided Iris/Barry, power bottom Barry, sleep paralysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 61,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieprincess_andthe_fallenangel/pseuds/Thundersnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So... what's your name?" Barry asked, indicating to the yellow ID badge on the guy's dark grey shirt, decorated with a smiling coffee cup and the words '<i>I'm new, ask me my name<i></i></i>'. The guy looked down at said badge as if it was the bane of his existence. There was a tense second where Barry considered just backing up and taking his seat again to drown himself in his coffee before the guy looked back up and responded.<br/>"Len," he said simply and Barry's grin turned a little less nervous.</p><p>  <i>-</i></p><p>Barry had given up trying to get over his feelings for Iris when he walked into Jitters one morning and was stunned silent by the cute new barista. Maybe this guy could finally be the one to help Barry move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> [Last edited to remove mistakes: 23/09/2017]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you Ships.Have.Canons on instagram for providing me with the name for this fic.
> 
> A couple of things about this fic; this is an AU where social workers took Len and Lisa away from their father and they were adopted into a good family and raised to be happy, law-abiding citizens. It's mostly canon up until the beginning of season 2, though there have been a couple more season 1 events tweaked but the majority of those are explained in this prologue. I don't know how long this is going to be, maybe 20-30k. I'm going to add to the tags as I continue to update and I'm not yet sure if this fic is going to stay teen or if I'll change the rating to explicit down the line – if you have any preferences on that then let me know :)

Barry loved CC Jitters, it was the best coffee shop in Central City. Not that he'd particularly loved coffee when he started to become a regular there; no, Barry was willing to admit to himself, if not anybody else, that he only started visiting Jitters because Iris worked there.

Coffee was always too bitter for Barry, but he eventually acquired the taste so that he could visit Iris at work and now, years later, it was something that he couldn't go a day without. He still didn't like homemade coffee though, he could never get it right and it always seemed to leave a foul taste on the back of his tongue. That's why Barry was still stopping at Jitters every morning, even though it had been almost a year after Iris had quit and taken a job at the paper.

He knew everyone who worked there, not necessarily by _name_ but by the nicknames that Cisco had created for them. Which was why he was surprised when he strolled into the coffee shop one morning, actually on time for work for a change, and found someone new behind the counter. There wasn't a very high staff turnover rate at Jitters and so it was rare to see someone new working there. He couldn't get a good look at the guy from all the way at the back of the line, but it was moving fast enough as the tall man with short, shaved, hair took everyone's orders quickly.

Barry grabbed his phone and checked the time; the queue was much longer than he'd anticipated but if he could get his coffee in the next ten minutes then he could race over to the precinct and still arrive on time. He tapped the side of his phone a few times before he unlocked it and opened Instagram. The first few pictures on his feed were, of course, about the Flash. He rolled his eyes and skipped past them, it was no use trying to unfollow the accounts because Cisco (or maybe it was Felicity? He'd never managed to get a clear explanation out of either of them) would simply hack into his account and follow them for him again. He wasn't sure why they were doing it, Barry didn't find it particularly funny that he had _'fan accounts'_ dedicated to his alter ego but obviously his friends found it _hilarious_.

"Welcome to Jitters, what can I get for you?" Asked a deep, slightly bored, voice and Barry realised he'd reached the front of the queue. He locked his phone instantly and shoved it into his jacket pocket as he shot his head up to stare at the man behind the counter. Barry was suddenly turned speechless as he got his first real look at the man, he was gorgeous. His face was almost identical; he had high cheekbones and a broad jaw, his skin looked soft and smooth on his clean-shaven face and his eyebrows were thick and arched perfectly. But it was the man's eyes that made Barry stare silently. The morning sunlight was shining on them through the windows, making them glow a bright, unearthly, blue. Barry didn't have a colour to compare them to. He thought they looked a little like the colour of a clear sky on a bright, mid-summer afternoon. But they were… _deeper_ than that. Barry thought for a moment that he could drown in that colour.

But then the man's eyebrows were drawing together in a frown and he was tilting his head down, confused, just enough to make the beam of sunlight hit his forehead instead and the colour of his eyes softened, turning into a lighter, smoother, blue/grey.

"Sorry," Barry muttered, blinking out of his trance and beginning to blush. "One Flash, please. To go." The man behind the counter nodded once and rung up his order. Barry paid, waited for his coffee by the pick-up area and then got out of there without another look back at the beautiful stranger. Once he was free of the coffee shop he stood still for a moment and dragged his hand across his face as he internally chastised himself for acting like a complete idiot.

He jumped as his phone started to ring and he fumbled to pull it out of his pocket and answer the call before it went to voicemail.

"You're late," Joe said as Barry hit accept and Barry checked his watch, almost spilling his coffee as he did so, and cursed before he sped off to work. Barry attempted to put that embarrassing coffee incident behind him as he carried on with his day and it was easy enough to get wrapped up in his work with the police, _nothing quite gets your mind off your failures like investigating murders_ , Barry thought. But he was only in for a short 5-hour shift that morning and so he found himself sitting at home with nothing to occupy his thoughts not long later. Barry's mind began to drift back to that morning and the man with the beautiful blue eyes.

He felt like a complete idiot. Attractive people weren't supposed to just sneak up out of nowhere, they were supposed to give awkward idiots like Barry a couple of minutes to prepare for a conversation… Otherwise, it just wasn't fair. Burying his head in his hands, Barry attempted to just forget about the whole ordeal. It wasn't like the guy would give him the time of day now that he'd gone and made a complete fool of himself… if he ever would have done so before (and that was a pretty big _if_ ). Barry flicked through the channels while he contemplated his lack of a love life, but there was nothing on and so he decided to run to STAR Labs instead.

Barry loved running. When he was moving so fast that everyone else was standing still... like _time itself_ was standing still... it made him feel like he was carving out a part of the world for himself that no one else could be a part of. It was peaceful.

"Barry!" Cisco greeted him enthusiastically as he entered the cortex and Caitlin looked over at him from where she had been calibrating the centrifuge. "Glad you're here, you can settle an argument: which is better, Stargate SG1 or Stargate _Atlantis_?" He said the word with a huff as if the concept of it being considered a better show was beyond his comprehension.

"Stargate Universe," Barry stated and Cisco stared at him for a long few seconds before rolling his eyes.

"Okay, now I _know_ you're insane," he said and turned to Caitlin. " _No one_ thinks that _Universe_ was the best Stargate spin-off."

" _Hey_ ," Barry called out in fake-offence.

"Sorry, Barry," Caitlin responded quietly. "But I have to agree with Cisco on this one."

"Universe _sucked_ ," Cisco sang with a nod of his head

"I've never watched the others," Barry admitted, shrugging, and he collapsed into the chair next to Cisco.

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa_! Are you joking?" Cisco said loudly, waving his hands up to emphasise his words as he turned to fully face Barry. "You're not joking. That's… just sad. Okay, I'm calling it! We're having a Stargate marathon and rectifying this mistake as soon as possible. Clear your calendars for the next two weeks, people!" Cisco enthused and Caitlin rolled her eyes. "Prepare to have your _mind_ _blown_ , Barry."

"I'll try," he joked and Caitlin smiled sweetly at him. She finished calibrating the machine and moved on to something else as Cisco began to enthuse about how great the show was.

"Oh, _please_ ," Caitlin interrupted. "Don't pretend like Sam Carter wasn't the only reason you watched SG1 in the first place."

"I am _offended_ , Cait. Sure, she is an attractive woman but Stargate is a great show with a great plot and _aliens_. There are so many reasons that I watch it that doesn't revolve around how attractive one of the main characters may or may not be." Caitlin and Barry both shared a look that had Cisco throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.

"Okay, I was a teenager. Of course, I was watching it because of Carter. But I bet that the only reason you liked Atlantis so much was because of John Sheppard!"

"That is so not true," Caitlin denied calmly. "I also watched it because of Ronon Dex." Barry laughed at his friends brightly as they continued to bicker. But then his eyes landed on the wheelchair pushed up against the wall in the corner of the room. Cisco had been studying the device inside for the past few months and so most of the time the wheelchair remained in view, a painful reminder of how they'd been betrayed.

Cisco and Caitlin continued to quarrel, but the words didn't make it to Barry's ears as his mind slipped into his memories, his smile slowly dropping from his face. He remembered the sting of being betrayed by someone he'd thought of as a mentor; he remembered his mother's cries, a sound that he'd only just began to forget, renewed in his mind once more. And he remembered the deafening sound of the bullets that Eddie had shot into Harrison's… _Eobard's_ … back.

This first bullet had hit him, dead centre. The second one lodged into his side as he'd turned. He'd caught the third and fourth as he began to stagger backwards. But the fifth one had hit his chest. Eobard collapsed to the ground after that. He'd been dying, but still alive for the time being, when the black hole had swallowed up his body. Barry shook his head and slowly crept out of his own thoughts and re-joined Cisco and Caitlin in the real world.

"Okay, you have Rodney," Cisco was conceding. "But _we_ have Daniel Jackson. He's like a world-travelling Indiana Jones!" Barry was happy that he'd met Cisco and Caitlin, along with Iris they were the best friends he'd ever made. They left STAR Labs a few hours later and had dinner together at a Thai place. By the time that he got home he had completely forgotten about the incident at Jitters with the beautiful stranger.

[] [] []

The next morning, Barry began to feel nervous again as he approached the coffee shop. He wondered if the guy would be on shift again this morning… would he recognise Barry if he was? Would he make fun of him or just let it slide? But when he got inside it wasn't the gorgeous guy with blue eyes that he saw behind the till. A woman with long bright red hair was taking the customers' orders today, Barry thought that her name was Sophie but Cisco always called her Jean Grey. Barry couldn't help but wonder in that moment if they spent too much time at Jitters.

He shrugged off that thought though and joined the queue. Another short work day waited for him and he made plans with Iris to have a late lunch as he waited for his order to be made. He was called directly to a crime scene after he left the coffee shop and somehow made it there exactly on time and got on with another fast work day.

"Oh, thank God you're here," Iris said to Barry five and a half hours later when he showed up at her work building and Barry beamed at her. "I've been rewriting the beginning of this article for the past hour with no luck. I need some coffee," she demanded and grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair.

"Coffee?" Barry asked quietly, realising that he and his friends really _did_ have an obsession with caffeine.

"The good stuff," she agreed. "We could go to Jitters first and then get a hotdog from the park?" Iris asked and Barry just nodded and followed her out to her car. Once they got to Jitters, Barry and Iris slipped into the queue and Barry grimaced as he recognised the face of the man behind the counter. It was the man with the beautiful eyes again because _of course,_ Barry wouldn't be lucky enough to avoid him two trips in the same day. Iris was talking about the article she was writing animatedly and didn't seem to notice Barry's hesitance. There were only two people in front of them and all Barry could think about was how badly he'd embarrassed himself the previous morning and how those blue eyes would soon be on him again.

He didn't know why that thought made him feel so flustered because, for all Barry knew, the guy could be a complete ass. He hated liking people that he didn't know. _But, then again,_ he thought as his eyes flicked back to Iris, _liking people he_ did _know wasn't always that much fun either_. Barry heard the door open and a group of teenagers joined the queue behind them. For 2 pm midweek, Jitters was surprisingly busy. Not hectic like the morning rush, but half the seats were filled and there was a steady stream of people moving around and talking. He was pulled away from that thought as the women in front of them moved away to the pick-up area and Barry and Iris were suddenly next to order. He looked up to see the, currently, blue/grey eyes shining down on him.

"Welcome to Jitters," the man behind the counter greeted with a polite smile, which widened as he recognised Barry and was replaced with something that was probably better classified as a smirk. "The Flash, right?"

" _What_?" Barry squeaked in shock and the man frowned at him.

"Your… drink? That's what you ordered before, do you want something else?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, no, I'll have a Flash," Barry stumbled over the words with a nervous laugh.

"Two, please," Iris said next to him and Barry could _hear_ the smile in her voice. "In to-go cups."

"Regular or large?" The man asked, directing his question purely towards Iris as she appeared the only sane one of the pair, or maybe it was because Iris was attractive and Barry was just... _Barry._  He realised suddenly that the guy had never asked him that question the previous morning. It might have been because he was new to the job or because it'd been during the morning rush… but Barry had a feeling that it had more to do with his unfiltered gawping freaking the guy out than anything else.

Iris answered him and the man rung up their order. Barry buried his head in his hands as they shuffled over to the pick-up line and Iris didn't hold her laugh in any longer, making Barry's blush only deepen.

"I've never seen you get so frazzled over a guy before, Bear," she said once she had calmed down a little, a teasing tone added to her voice. "Who is he?"

"I don't know," Barry admitted and Iris gave him a soft smile. She looked over at the man behind the counter appreciatively.

"Why don't you _ask_?"

"Ask? Like… _ask him out_?" Barry asked past the lump in his throat. He knew that Iris didn't love him the way that he loved her but it still hurt when she'd try to set him up with someone else. At one point they'd had a chance. Barry's mind flitted back to the name on the newspaper from the future, _Iris West-Allen_ , but the future was pliable, like playdough, it could easily be shaped and changed. Ever since Barry had seen the name on that paper he'd assumed it was as good as confirmed that they'd end up together. He envisioned Iris finding out somehow, maybe by stumbling upon the secret future room at STAR Labs, and she would admit that she loved him. She would say that she'd been so worried that it wouldn't work out that she didn't dare to take that step towards a romantic relationship, but now she knew they were destined for each other and she was going to let go of her reserves.

Barry was a daydreamer like that. He clung on to that fantasy whenever he was feeling sad and he let it make his heart flutter. But then, one night, he had overheard her shouting at Eddie and he realised that she _already_ knew. And instead of confessing her feelings to Barry, she was insisting that her future wasn't going to be determined by a piece of paper... that their future was _theirs_ to make and no one else's.

" _I don't love Barry. I love you_!" She'd cried. " _I'm not letting some name, that may or may not have been a lie, change us. I'm not letting you turn that into some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know what happens in the future… but I do know that I want to spend_ mine _with_ you." And like that, Eddie and Iris were engaged. Barry never told her what he'd overheard and Iris never told him what she knew of their possible future together; as far as she was concerned the only people who knew were herself and Eddie.

That night, Barry had stood outside Harrison Wells' secret room and battled with himself. He'd wanted to go in and reassure himself that the future hadn't changed, but he was overcome with worry that the name on the paper would now read Iris West- _Thawne_. He'd turned away because he was scared by what he might read and after that night he'd made a deal with Cisco and Caitlin, they all agreed that none of them would go into the time vault again. Knowing the future was too tempting, too dangerous. So Barry didn't know if it would ever work out between him and Iris, but he _did_ know that right now she was engaged to Eddie and she was happy.

"Well, you don't need to ask him out yet," Iris continued, unaware of the crushing feeling inside Barry's chest. "But asking his name is a start."

"Maybe next time," Barry answered. They picked up their drinks a few seconds later and left the coffee shop together. Barry cast one last look at the man behind the counter as he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you guys think of the first chapter of my first ever coldflash fic? I'd appreciate some feedback. And remember to let me know if you'd prefer this fic to stay rated teen or if I should add some sexy scenes in the upcoming chapters.


	2. Hottie in Red Leather

"Have you ever thought that we spend _far_ too much time here?" Barry asked his friends as they all took seats at a table in Jitters.

"No, I kind of like it," Cisco replied. "It's like we're in an episode of _Friends_." Caitlin nodded and took a sip of her coffee.

"What's brought this on, anyway?" She asked. "After all, you're the reason why we started coming here so often…"

"No reason," Barry replied, his eyes flicking over to the new guy with the beautiful eyes, who was cleaning up a table across the room, and then back down to his cup. Apparently, he hadn't been as subtle as he thought because both Cait and Cisco instantly followed his eyes, turning their heads around to look in the guy's direction.

"Oh, he's _cute_ ," Caitlin said happily, before taking another sip of her coffee.

"Seriously, guys?" Barry whispered, lifting his hand up into the air in disbelief. "Could you try _not staring_? He's going to notice." Cisco and Caitlin both, begrudgingly, turned back to face Barry. Which he was thankful about, he didn't need the guy seeing them and having any _more_ reasons to think Barry was weird.

"Who is he?" Cait asked.

"I don't know," he muttered, pitifully.

"Well, have you talked to him yet?" She asked and Barry dropped his forehead onto the table in front of him as he remembered the two previous times that they'd met. Cisco dragged air in through his teeth harshly in a hiss.

"Ouch. That bad, huh?"

"I think you should go talk to him," Caitlin said confidently after a few seconds of silence had passed.

" _Did you not see him slam his head against the table_?" Cisco stage-whispered to Cait and Barry pretended not to hear, as did Caitlin.

"Whatever you did or said, it doesn't matter," she announced to Barry.

"I completely embarrassed myself," he muttered, his voice muffled.

"Maybe… but you're the kind of guy who makes embarrassing situations… _cute_. If he's even remotely into guys then I just know that he'll be charmed by you." Barry left his head pressed against the table, silent, and then he heard a thud from nearby and Cisco grunted.

"I agree with Caitlin," he said in monotone. "You should go talk to him." Barry stayed completely still for a few seconds before slowly raising his head to squint at his two friends.

"Why can't I just stay here and be sad?"

"Because we're your friends and we won't let you. We want to see you happy," Caitlin said.

"Also, we like it here and we don't want to change coffee shops," Cisco added and there was another thud from under the table. Cisco turned to glare at Cait. "Seriously?! Did your parents never teach you that it's not polite to kick people?!"

"Go get him, Barry," Caitlin smiled, ignoring Cisco again. Barry sighed and pulled himself out of his seat, slowly making his way over to where the beautiful stranger was clearing tables. The man looked up as Barry approached, his signature smirk appearing on his pink, plump lips.

"Do you need some help?" The man asked and Barry nodded, trying to think of something to say.

"Yeah, I was wondering… where the sugar is," Barry said slowly and the guy raised his eyebrows but didn't mention that he'd seen Barry here 3 times in a week, meaning that he was _obviously_ a regular customer and already knew where everything was. Instead, the guy just led Barry to the side counter where all the sugars and stirrers were kept. "Thanks," Barry said softly, picking up a couple of brown sugar packets and fiddling with them.

"No problem, kid," the guy said and Barry looked over at him, biting his lip nervously. He took a deep breath and put on a smile.

"So... what's your name?" Barry asked, indicating to the yellow ID badge on the guy's dark grey shirt, decorated with a smiling coffee cup and the words ' _I'm new, ask me my name_ '. The guy looked down at said badge as if it was the bane of his existence. There was a tense second where Barry considered just backing up and taking his seat again to drown himself in his coffee before the guy looked back up and responded.

"Len," he said simply and Barry's grin turned a little less nervous.

"I'm Barry," he said and Len nodded.

"Yeah, Audrey told me," he said, nodding his head in the direction of the front counter where the 20-year-old women with soft blond hair sat. It was quite late in the days so there was no queue at the moment and she was looking over at them, she smiled and waved when Barry saw her. "She told me you've been staring at me since you walked in." To think that Barry had thought of Audrey as a friend. He was wrong. Oh, so wrong. She wasn't kind at all, she was actually _evil_. Barry once again considered going back to his friends to drown in his cup of coffee.

He looked back over at them and saw both Caitlin and Cisco were watching him unabashedly.

"Well, this is embarrassing," Barry muttered and Len huffed a quiet laugh.

"Don't worry about it, kid," he drawled and Barry nodded and bit his lip as he tried to decide if he'd embarrassed himself enough for one day… apparently, he hadn't because he continued talking.

"Are you new to Central City?" Barry asked and Len shook his head.

"I grew up here," he said, "but I moved to Kansas when I was 20."

"Oh, so I suppose you don't need anyone to show you around, then…" Barry muttered, blushing the moment that he did.

"Not exactly."

"Okay. I'm erm…" Barry started walking backwards, hooking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Cisco and Caitlin. He walked back into an empty chair and had to catch it before it fell over, laughing nervously. "I'm going to go back to my friends now and stop embarrassing myself. Thanks for the, erm…" he waved the packets in the air. "Sugar. Yeah, okay." He spun around and walked as calmly as he could back to his friends.

"Nice to meet you, Barry," Len called after him and Barry could _hear_ the smile in his voice. But when he turned back to look in Len's direction he was a little disappointed to see the guy wasn't watching him and had started righting the chair that Barry had almost knocked over.

"So… how did it go?" Caitlin asked sweetly with a pleasant smile on her face.

"How did it _look_ like it went…?" Barry muttered in reply and dropped his head into his hands.

"Well, it seemed like it went better than _you_ think it went," Cisco said and Barry resisted the urge to glare at him.

"What's his name?" Caitlin questioned and Barry frowned at her. She was acting… weird. It wasn't as though she'd never encouraged him to ask someone out before, but this time she seemed almost… invested…

"Why are you so…?" Barry waved his hands in her general direction to point out her current eagerness.

"I want you to be happy," she repeated and then looked down at her empty coffee cup. "And… we haven't seen you interested in anyone since… _you know_ …" she was talking about the day he'd overheard Iris confess her undying love to Eddie…

" _What_? I've been interested in people," Barry protested, but when he looked to Cisco for backup, his friend just slowly shook his head. "Okay, so, maybe it's been a while since I've liked anyone," Barry admitted. "But it was _hard_ hearing her say that."

"We know, Barry. We understand," Caitlin insisted.

"We're just worried," Cisco ended and Cait nodded.

"You don't have to worry; it's going to be okay, guys. I'm going to move on."

"When?" She asked him sincerely and Barry didn't know how to answer so he looked away, spotting Len and Audrey talking quietly across the counter from one another.

"By the way, we hate Audrey now," Barry muttered as he tried to lighten the mood that had fallen across their table.

"What? No. We love Audrey," Cisco insisted.

"She told Len that I was staring at him!"

"Okay… but she baked me brownies this year for my birthday. When was the last time _you_ baked me anything? Why should I take your side?" Cisco demanded and then jumped up suddenly, probably dodging another kick from Caitlin.

"Come on, it's getting late," Cait sighed. "We should probably get back to STAR Labs. Unless you want a night off?" She asked, directing the question mostly to Barry who shook his head and grabbed his empty coffee cup, depositing it into the trash as they left Jitters and walked out into the cool, darkening city.

[] [] []

Len heard the door open and watched as Barry and his two friends left the coffee shop, trying his best, and ultimately failing, to not watch the guy's ass as he walked away. Len felt bad instantly, Barry was a _kid_ , part of Len questioned if he was even 18 years old.

"Are you sad that the eye-candy has left?" Audrey grinned, barely looking up from whatever she was tapping away on her phone. Len ignored her and attempted to push down the guilt that he was feeling. Audrey put her phone away and stared at him for a moment before speaking up again. "Did you ask him out?" Len shook his head. "Why not?"

"The age difference, for one."

"You should ask him out," she muttered with a shake of her head, picking up her phone once more.

"Oh, really?"

"Well, you like him and he _obviously_ likes you. So yes, really." Len shook his head and pushed himself off the counter to go clean the table Barry had been sitting at. The three friends had binned their empty cups as they'd left and so it only needed a tidying and a wipe down. Len noticed the two untouched packets of brown sugar that Barry had used as an excuse to talk to him sitting on the table and he smiled.

"How old is he?" Len finally inquired after he'd cleaned down the table and went back to leaning against the main counter. Audrey's smile was broad and teasing.

"I'm not too sure. I just know that he's older than me and younger than Iris," she eventually replied.

"Iris?"

"His sister… kind of…" Audrey said. "A little taller than me, dark skin, black hair… pretty," she described and Len nodded, remembering the woman Barry had been with a few days ago. Len felt guilty all over again once he realised that he was feeling _relieved_ that Barry and this woman, Iris, were siblings. Though he itched to know the story behind the ' _kind of_ '. But if anyone understood that family wasn't so straightforward, it was Len. So he didn't push the subject… maybe Barry would tell him himself one day.

A woman in a brightly coloured jumper bookmarked the page of the book she was reading, shrugged on her blue coat and left. Audrey grabbed a rag and went to clear the table and Len cast a look over at the last remaining customer in CC Jitters. She looked to be a student at the university: surrounded by textbooks, her headphones in and typing furiously on her pink-cased laptop.

Neither Len nor Audrey wanted to disturb her and so they left it another half an hour, until the last possible minute when they had already flipped the sign, cleaned the machines and started stacking the stools, before Audrey tapped her on the shoulder and told her they were closing.

Len only lived a couple of minutes away from the coffee shop and so he declined Audrey's offer for a lift and chose to walk home. The chilled night time air nipped at his nose and ears as he strolled along the road to his apartment. Just as he was about to turn down another road he saw a streak of red lightning zip past him along the street.

 _The Flash_ , Len realised, staring after it. For a moment, he wondered what the superhero was racing towards tonight before he shook himself and continued to walk home. A couple of minutes later he was climbing up the steps to his apartment building and unlocking his door. The second that he got inside his apartment he heard the sound of his TV playing and Len sighed.

"Lisa?" He called out as he took off his jacket and hung it up.

"In the living room," he heard her perky reply. Len walked through his small apartment to see his sister stretched across his couch wearing a V-necked black jumpsuit, her red stilettos kicked to the floor, and flicking through the channels on his TV as she munched on his chocolate.

"What are you doing here?" He asked and then shook his head as he thought of something more important to say. "I thought I asked you not to break in."

"It's not breaking in if you have a key," she grinned and picked said key up off of the coffee table, waving it in his face.

"It is if you _stole_ it," Len muttered and then tapped her legs until she moved them and he could sit down on the sofa next to her. "Where did you get that from?"

"I have a locksmith friend who owed me a favour. Don't be so pouty, it's good to give out spares to family members."

"Not when your family members eat all your food, it's not," Len grumbled, indicating to the collection of wrappers splayed on the floor around where Lisa was sitting. She smiled at him and dramatically took a big bite of chocolate. "You're going to clean all of this up, you know," Len said and Lisa eventually nodded.

"Can I sleep on your couch tonight?" She asked after a pause and Len frowned at her as he recognised the subdued tone of her voice. He looked at her a little closer then and recognised the slight smudge of mascara under her eye instead of her normally perfect make-up. Len wondered if she'd been crying.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing… I had an argument with my boyfriend. I don't feel like talking about it but I just really don't want to go back there tonight."

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" Len asked carefully.

"No," his sister replied and so he nodded. He knew she would tell him about it when she was ready so, as long as she wasn't in any danger, he would respect her privacy.

"You can stay as long as you like," he said as he picked up his mail from where it was scattered across his coffee table. Lisa nodded her thanks and went back to flicking through the channels, pausing on the news.

"Oh look, the Flash is stopping a bank robbery again," She said, sitting up a little straighter, and Len hummed in response, not entirely paying attention; he hadn't had time to look through his mail before he'd left for work earlier, the majority of it was junk mail but he noticed a postcard from his adoptive parents, who were currently on a golden year's cruise. "You _do_ know about the Flash, right?" She asked when she didn't get much of a response from him and Len looked up at her.

"Of course. I've not been living under a rock for the past year, Lisa; the guy is everywhere. They even have a drink dedicated to him at Jitters."

"Right, what was I thinking?" She said with a smirk. "Of course you've heard of him… a hottie in red leather? He's probably the reason you moved back to Central," she teased. Lisa finished off the chocolate and started skipping through the channels again. "Who do you think he is?" She asked a couple of minutes later.

"The Flash? Who cares?"

"Oh, come, _on_. You've always had a thing for superheroes. You can't tell me that you're not the least bit curious." It was true. When he was a kid, Len would fantasise that Spiderman would show up and save him from his dad. Just whisk him away to a happy home and a happy life. And then when he got a few years older the fantasies turned a little less PG-13. But superheroes weren't the ones who had saved him. He was saved by social workers and his new family. They were his real heroes. And while people like the Flash were fascinating for a moment, they weren't particularly special in his mind anymore.

"I've been living in Central for less than 3 weeks," Len said instead of explaining any of this to his sister. "You really expect me to know enough people to be able to guess who the Flash is?" Lisa rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm not asking for an exact person," she huffed, "I'm just asking for a general idea… I bet he's kind. He has to be, right? To go around saving all of those lives at the risk of his own…"

"I bet he's stuck up," Len interrupted. "Thinks he's better than everyone else because he can run fast."

"He probably has a normal job," she continued, ignoring her brother. "Something mundane and unassuming so that no one would ever suspect him of being the masked hero."

" _Vigilante_ ," Len corrected and Lisa dropped the remote to glare at him.

"What is _wrong_ with you today?"

"Nothing." Len shrugged. "You just sound like you have a crush on the guy."

"I'm not a teenager, I'm almost 36; I don't have _crushes_ ," she muttered. "And what's so wrong with it if I _did_? Half of Central have a thing for him."

"So you _do_ have a crush," Len teased and she threw a cushion at him.

"It's not… _him_ ," she said after a moment. "It's the idea of him that I like. It'd be nice to meet a good guy for once." She sighed and Len resisted the urge to ask what Roscoe, her boyfriend, had done this time. She wasn't very open with her feelings; neither of them was, actually, but Lisa was perhaps even more closed off than Len was. If he tried to pry into what was wrong then she would get uncomfortable and Len wanted her to keep thinking of his apartment as a safe place that she could go to whenever she needed a break.

"Shall I order a pizza?" He asked and she grinned widely in response so he took out his phone and hoped that his sister was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say… _wow ___. Such an amazing response for that first chapter. I definitely wasn't expecting to get over 100 kudos in just a couple of days, and I honestly doubted that I would get _any ___comments and so getting as many as I did really made my day.
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _Chapter 3 is pretty much done but I have exams and assessments coming up, so if I want to be able to update this fic regularly then I'm going to have to pace myself a little. Meaning that I'll be waiting until Friday 8th April to post the next chapter :)_  
> 


	3. Take a Leap

"You _have_ to buy a bigger couch," Lisa grumbled as she walked into the kitchen in the morning and Len muttered back to her in response.

"There's no room for a bigger couch."

"Then get a bigger apartment." Len looked up at his sister over the rim of his glasses before going back to reading the newspaper.

"Your boyfriend stopped a fire last night," he commented as he turned the page and Lisa paused pouring herself a cup of coffee to frown at him.

" _What_?" She asked, confused, and Len rolled his eyes.

"The _Flash_ ," he reminded her and she nodded in understanding. She moved to the fridge then and stared at the empty shelves.

"Why do you have no food?"

"You ate it all," he replied instantly and she huffed.

"You need a bigger fridge, too." She grabbed the milk and poured herself a bowl of cereal, which she ate quickly. "Roscoe cheated on me," she said as she got out of her chair to rinse the empty bowl. Her voice was monotone and emotionless but Len knew she was hurting inside. He took his glasses off and looked at her. "He texted me last night, begging me to come home. I'll probably forgive him. I always _do_."

"You deserve better than him," Len said, concealing his anger.

" _Yeah_. But what can you do?" She said, dismissively.

"You could stay here," he suggested. "You don't have to go back to him."

"That's sweet." She smiled. "But I don't think I can take another night on your sofa."

"I'll get a bigger place," he insisted. "One with a second room."

"You can't afford that," she reminded him, putting the bowl on the drying rack and turning to face him. "You're saving your money to go back to school, remember?" Len rolled his eyes.

"I've been waiting to start university classes for a long time. One more year won't hurt me."

"No," she insisted. "You've put off your dream to help me too many times before, Lenny," she scolded him, talking about the time when he'd dropped out of high school, despite his scholarships and early college acceptances, so that he could be there to protect his sister from their father. And then again, fifteen years later, when he worked an extra job to help their adoptive parents pay for her tuition. Len wanted to protest but he knew there was no point and so he sighed and nodded.

"I can take the sofa if you want to stay again tonight?" He offered anyway and she smiled at him but declined.

"Can I see that article on the Flash?" She asked in a brighter tone of voice and he pushed the paper across the table towards her. Lisa smiled and sat down as she read. Len got another cup of coffee and he waited. "So…" she began after skim reading the article. "Have you met anyone lately?" Len paused and his thoughts immediately drifted to Barry. When he faced his sister again she was grinning like she knew the biggest secret in the universe. "You _like_ someone," she accused happily and Len shrugged. "Well…? I want details," she demanded. "First thing's first, guy or girl?"

"I need to get ready for work," Len dodged.

"So you'll be late. It's only a coffee shop, who cares?"

"I'm new. If I'm late then I'll lose the job." Lisa rolled her eyes. "If I lose the job then I won't be going to college next year," he tried to sway her again but Lisa just continued to stare him down.

"If you don't give me details then I'll bug you until you _do_."

"You have work too," he reminded her.

"I'll call in sick and then I'll have nothing better to do than follow you around all day at Jitters."

"His name is Barry," Len conceded.

"What does he do?" She prodded

"I don't know…" he admitted after a small pause. "He's a regular at Jitters. He's cute and a little bit awkward… young, too," Len added. It was the one thing he was truly worried about.

"How young?"

" _Too_ young." Lisa stared at him until he sighed. "I don't know. Twenty, maybe."

"Oh, you dirty old man," Lisa teased lightly and Len sighed at her. He moved to the sink and rinsed his cup before dropping it onto the drying board.

"I'm going to take a shower."

" _Fine_. But I expect more details soon. Tonight, maybe?" She asked and Len nodded. "Great, what time do you finish? I'll pick you up and we can go out for Chinese. My treat."

"Don't you ever get tired of eating take away?"

"Never." She took another sip of her coffee. "It's worth the three hours I spend on a treadmill every day." Len didn't quite agree with her there but he nodded anyway and went to get ready for his morning shift.

When he got out of the shower, Lisa was wearing a light grey hoodie and a pair of baggy jeans that she had brought with her in an overnight bag.

"I'm going into work late today so that I can go get a cup of coffee and check out your new job," Lisa said happily once she noticed Len's confused frown.

"It's a coffee shop, nothing special to it," he replied, his eyes scrunched together as he stared at Lisa with suspicion. This had something to do with what he'd told her about Barry. " _Lisa_ …" Len began to warn her to stay out of his business but she shook her head and started talking over him.

"I'm going with you, Lenny. I want to meet the man who stole my brother's heart," she teased. "Or, at least know what he looks like."

"What difference does it make?" Len muttered as he sat down to put his boots on. "I barely know the guy and he's ridiculously young so it's not like I'm about to go asking him out." Lisa stayed suspiciously quiet. "What?"

"We both know that you fall fast, Lenny. I'm your sister, I just want to make sure you don't get hurt." She was so sincere in that moment that Len couldn't resist her. He agreed to let her tag along and soon they were both walking to Jitters. There were already two of his co-workers opening up the shop when he arrived and he knew that Audrey would be there soon too and so at least he would have _someone_ to distract him from his sister before the morning rush started. "You should give him a free upgrade," Lisa said around a yawn and Len ignored her as he unstacked the stools and began placing them in their proper places around the tables.

"That would be adorable," Audrey teased as she walked in through the door and, although Len was looking the other way, he was _sure_ that Lisa was grinning like an idiot.

"You know about Barry?" Lisa asked and that was that; the two were instant best friends gossiping over Len's lack of a love life. He didn't know why he expected anything different… "Anyway, back to the coffee thing. A yes or no on the free upgrade?"

"Yes," Audrey said at the same time that Len muttered "No."

"Why not?" Lisa pouted and Len glared at her. "All you have to do is charge him for a regular, ring him up for a large, and pay the 70 cents difference… as romantic gestures go, it's a pretty cheap one," Lisa insisted. Len shook his head.

"I'm not even on the till today," Len muttered, thinking it would end the conversation. Instead, Audrey's face just lit up.

"I can swap with you," she insisted. "You work the till and I'll work the machines." Len glared at her.

"Then it's settled," Lisa announced. "Hey, Audrey. You know Barry personally, right?" Audrey nodded. "Perfect. What's he like?" Before the younger woman could answer, Len cut in.

"Lisa, can I talk to you for a second," he demanded. Lisa smiled apologetically at Audrey and followed Len as he led her away from his co-workers. "What are you doing?"

"I'm finding out about your guy."

"He's not ' _my guy_ '. And even if he was, why can't you just wait to meet him before starting the 3rd degree, like a _normal_ sister would?"

"Oh, what do _we_ know of normal," she muttered and sighed. "I just want to make sure he's a good guy, Lenny, before you fall for him too hard. And I love you, I do, but you're not always the best judge of character. I mean, I didn't think I'd have to remind you of your terrible dating history from the past ten years…"

"Do I have to remind you of _yours_?"

"Touché." The first customers of the day strolled into Jitters then and Len had to get back to work. He hoped he would have another chance at trying to convince his sister to leave before Barry showed up, but he had no such luck as the coffee shop filled up pretty quickly. Soon he saw Barry walking in, wearing a long brown jacket and dark jeans. He heard Audrey call Lisa over and take a moment to point him out while she frothed the milk for some guy's cappuccino. Len had a few seconds to worry that his sister was about to go introduce herself to Barry, but she went back to sitting down and staring at him subtly.

"Hey, Len," Barry smiled as he got to the front of the queue and Len couldn't help but smile back at him. It was like the guy's grin was contagious.

"Good morning, Barry," he drawled and watched with fascination as the guy's cheeks started getting red without a prompt. He wondered for a moment if blushing was Barry's natural state of being… and then he started to wonder exactly how far down the blush spread to as he watched Barry's neck turn red too. He wanted to ask. He wanted to flirt. He wanted to spend the entire morning talking about _anything_. Instead, he took Barry's order. He paused before keying it into the till, though, and he took Lisa's comments into mind. _The hell with it_ , he thought as he ordered Barry a large drink. He'd add the extra into the till when he got a chance to after the morning rush was over.

"See you later," Barry mumbled as he paid and left to wait for his drink. Len's eyes immediately flicked to Lisa and he glared at her. She smiled back at him, lifting her drink in approval.

[] [] []

Barry didn't realise right away, he'd already left the coffee shop and ran to a crime scene when he noticed that he was holding a large cup of coffee. He frowned down at it and thought back over the morning as he tried to remember how much he'd paid… he was certain that he'd paid for a regular, he even checked the change in his pocket to make sure. Barry had definitely bought a regular drink… so why was he holding a large? Had he stolen someone else's?

"What's got you so frowny?" Patty Spivot asked and Barry began to laugh nervously as he looked up at her.

"It's nothing. Just… nothing," Barry shook his head.

"Nothing?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, Jitters just got my order wrong…" he said, feeling stupid.

"Oh, what'd they give you instead?"

"A large."

"…You're sad because they upgraded your drink size?" Barry shrugged at her teasing tone and suddenly she was grinning and shaking her head. He felt like he was missing out on a joke.

"What's so funny?" He asked eventually.

"There's a heart drawn on the base of your cup," Patty mentioned and Barry frowned. "I saw it when you were taking a drink. Someone's trying to flirt with you." He tilted the cup instantly without thinking, trying to get a look at the base of the cup and accidentally pouring some of his drink onto the ground before Patty grabbed his hand and righted it. " _Careful_ ," she muttered and Barry nodded his thanks to her.

He'd been able to get a glimpse of the heart that she'd told him about, drawn in black ink and sketched in, on the base of his to-go cup and Barry instantly thought of Len and blushed. Of course, it could always have been Audrey, but she was aromantic and so he seriously doubted it. Then again… Len didn't exactly seem like the kind of guy that would draw hearts on the base of coffee cups. So maybe it _was_ Audrey… or maybe it was his idea to upgrade Barry's order and Audrey had found out and just drawn the heart as an extra touch?... There were too many thoughts running through his head, Barry wasn't sure which one to believe…

"Are you okay, Barry?" Patty asked gently, bringing him out of his daze.

"Yeah, fine. I was just thinking…" He frowned back down at his coffee but he continued drinking it as he walked through the crime scene with Joe. There was a lot of evidence that needed marking for collection and so it took them about an hour before they were ready to head back to the station. Joe offered Barry a lift but he declined, deciding to head back over to Jitters to get some answers first.

The coffee shop was almost empty when he walked in, half a minute later. There were a few customers dotted around at the tables; some talking quietly in their groups, barely loud enough to be heard over the music, others were on their laptops or reading books. There was no queue though in front of the till and the four employees were standing around it and laughing quietly with each other. As Barry opened the door, all of their eyes glimpsed in his direction. Three of them moved out of the way to continue their talk off to the side, but Len stayed in place. He leant on the countertop and smirked at Barry as he approached.

"Two visits in one day, I must be lucky," Len drawled and Barry couldn't help but blush… _again_. He took a deep breath and just dived right in.

"Do you like me?" He asked and held his breath. That hadn't _actually_ been what he meant to say… or, at least, he'd meant to say it more subtly.

"I do," Len replied quietly and suddenly Barry's chest felt heavy with hope (and something a little stronger that he wasn't yet ready to acknowledge). "But…" _uh oh_. "Kid, how old are you?" Len asked and Barry blushed, both with embarrassment and a little annoyance.

"I'm 26," he said, affronted.

" _Right_ ," Len muttered and Barry pulled his ID from his wallet and shoved it into Len's face.

"See!" He exclaimed. But Len just started smirking and Barry realised his mistake. He pulled back his ID as he dropped his hand, but it was already too late.

"Cute picture," Len drawled and Barry wanted to bang his head against the counter. His driver's licence was only a few months away from needing to be renewed and he'd gone through… a bit of an awkward stage in his early twenties. He'd been gangly and spotty and had frizzy hair and his picture reflected just how awkward he had been. Barry must have looked horrified because, for the first time since they'd met, Len's face started to look a little less controlled and softer emotions started to seep in. "It's not that bad. My first ID was much worse, _believe_ me," Len whispered and he sounded so sincere for a moment that Barry actually _did_. Len and Barry kept eye contact for several seconds, both of them leaning forward against the counter, only about a foot apart. The door opening made Len look away but Barry continued to stare into Len's beautiful blue/grey eyes. "I've got customers," Len said and Barry knew he was prompting him to either move out of the way or order. Barry looked over his shoulder at the old couple walking in through the door and heading their way; he made an impulsive decision.

"Go out with me," he whispered and Len's eyes shot back to meet Barry's in surprise

"What?"

"Go out with me. Tonight, maybe. If you're free?"

" _Barry_ …" Len whispered, his voice softer than Barry had ever heard it. His stomach twisted into knots as he waited to be rejected. "I'm old enough to be your dad."

"Do I _have_ to show you my ID again? I'm 26," Barry said, waving the card that was still clutched in his hand and Len nodded.

"And I am _old enough to be your dad_ ," Len insisted and Barry frowned at him. He studied Len's face and shook his head, the guy didn't look much older than 30. Sure, maybe his hairline was receding a little bit… but there was no way he was older than 35. _No way_.

"I'm not moving until you agree to go out with me," Barry stated and Len's eyes flicked to the old couple who had finished looking over the cake menu board and were now hovering quietly behind Barry.

"You're going to get me fired," Len muttered, but Barry refused to move and he could see the edges of a smile on Len's face. " _Fine_ ," he said quietly. He pulled a napkin out of the dispenser and a pen from the side. Len scribbled on it quickly and pushed it across the counter to Barry, who smiled when he saw the number scratched across the napkin in black ink. "I'm having dinner with my sister tonight but you can call me after 8," Len said quickly and quietly and Barry took the napkin with a smile on his face.

"I'll talk to you tonight," he confirmed and then he turned away from the counter and left Jitters before Len could change his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I did a little plan for this fic and the word count is likely going to be closer to 60k than the original idea of 20-30k… woops?
> 
> The beginning of this chapter was inspired by a comment I got from [Nevraukowen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevraukowen/pseuds/Nevraukowen) on my first chapter; I thought your idea was so cute that I just _had ___to add it into the fic :)
> 
> I think I'm going to continue updating this fic every Friday, so the next chapter will be posted on Friday 15th April


	4. Poker Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've officially decided to change the rating of this fic from teen to explicit. There isn't any smut in this chapter but it will be coming very soon. Also, a couple of new tags/ _TRIGGER WARNINGS_ : mention of panic attacks and hints at depression. Scroll to authors note at the end for more information.
> 
> On another note, sorry that this is a couple of days late; life was hectic last week and I was just too tired to finish writing this. I have to give a presentation tomorrow and I have exams and deadlines coming up in a few weeks, so I'll aim to update on the 23rd, but if I don't have the time then I'll probably wait until the 30th.

Iris and Eddie joined Barry and Joe for dinner that night and Barry's heart ached as he watched her smile at her fiancé and hold his hand. They were good together and Barry couldn't deny that they were happy. He wanted to be happy _for_ them and on some level he was. _This feeling is why you need to move on_ , Barry reminded himself. And he was looking forward to talking to Len later; he didn't know if he _could_ move on from Iris… but he liked Len and that was enough for now.

Barry started thinking again about Len's age. He knew that looks could be deceiving but the guy didn't seem to have a single wrinkle… _how old could he really be_?

"You're quiet," Iris commented and Barry realised he'd been staring at the clock for a couple of minutes now. He looked over towards his friend and noticed that she was now sitting on the sofa alone, he listened and could hear Eddie and Joe talking in the kitchen.

"I was just thinking… how old do you think Len is?"

"Len?" Iris questioned.

"The coffee shop guy."

"Oh," she said and began to smile then. "You could always ask him," she teased and Barry ran his hand over the back of his neck.

"He says he's old enough to be my dad," Barry muttered.

"Well, Bear, you _do_ kind of look like a 17-year-old."

"No, he knows I'm 26," Barry replied, a little bit frustrated.

"Wow, you've been talking with this guy a lot, huh?" Iris' smile grew wider. She looked genuinely happy for him. "Maybe he thinks you're lying about your age to get some hot, older guy, action?"

"He saw my ID," Barry admitted, "and he's still adamant that he's too old for me."

"You showed him your licence…" she sounded shocked and Barry understood why. "How'd _that_ go?"

"I regretted it instantly." _Kind of like I do this conversation_ , he thought bitterly.

"Look, Barry, you like this guy… right?" Iris asked and waited until he nodded before she continued. "Then I say you go for it." It still hurt to see Iris so happy that he was interested in someone else… but he felt a little better in that moment than he had the last time. Maybe making the decision to move on from her was the first step in _actually_ moving on? Barry didn't know, but he had hope that one day he would be happy.

Barry looked back at the clock, feeling excited when he realised it was a quarter to eight. He wondered if he could just call him now or if that would be too eager and off-putting. Then Barry wondered if asking Iris for advice would be too weird. After a little thought, he decided to begin as he intended to continue. Meaning, if he didn't want it to be awkward in the future then he needed not to be awkward about it now.

"So, I asked him out," Barry said slowly and watched the grin widen on Iris' face. Barry described to Iris how he'd gotten Len's phone number.

"Don't call him until _after_ 8:15…" Iris advised. "Maybe even 8:30. You don't want to seem too eager but you have to make sure he knows you're interested."

"Dating's complicated," Barry muttered and Iris nodded sympathetically.

"I know. And I _also_ know that you haven't done much of it in the last few years. So, I'm going to help you"

"Help…?" Barry asked, suspiciously, and Iris nodded.

"That's right. I only want for you to find someone who makes you as happy as Eddie makes me," she said and Barry had to hope his smile hadn't slipped into a grimace.

[] [] []

Len stared down at the watch on his left wrist as subtly as possible. The service was slow at the restaurant tonight, the waiter had come over to them _twice_ and apologised for the delay before their main course. The night wasn't continuing well for Len… it was half past seven and they'd only just finished their meals, he was supposed to already be _home_ by now. Barry would be calling him soon and he didn't want to have to talk to him in front of Lisa...

"Do you think we could skip dessert?" He asked his sister during a break in their conversation. "I've had a long day and I'm not feeling particularly hungry anymore." She stared silently at him for a second and Len hated the small smirk that began to develop over her lips.

"It depends on who you're skipping out on me for." Len rolled his eyes.

"No-one," he muttered as convincingly as he could. But it didn't matter, he couldn't lie to Lisa. For a long time, they were all the people in the world that they could trust… you don't get to be that close to someone and not be able to tell when they were lying.

"Is it Barry?" She asked and Len didn't answer, there was no point. "Wow, it _is_! You actually took my advice and asked him out. Good for you." The smile on her face was genuine and so Len allowed himself to smile back.

"I didn't ask him out," he said slowly and the smile on her face dropped slightly.

"Well, that's disappointing."

"I gave him my number and told him to ring me after eight," he offered Lisa.

"… It's a start, at least. But you better ask this kid out soon," she signalled the waitress for the bill, "I want you to be happy." Lisa and Len hugged goodbye outside the restaurant and Len climbed onto his motorbike. There weren't many luxuries that he allowed himself, not only because he was saving for classes at the university but also because an overindulgent nature reminded him too much of Lewis Snart and Len wanted nothing to do with his so-called father, but his bike made him feel free and powerful and the wind wrapping around his body calmed his rapid heartbeat like nothing else could.

He wasn't prone to panic attacks anymore, but when he was a teenager the slightest thing could set him off and make him feel like he couldn't breathe. And when that happened he would get on his bike, fill up the tank and just _ride_. It didn't matter where he was going, he often didn't even have a place in mind. He rode until he was hungry, then he'd stop at the nearest fast food place and eat just enough to fill him up but not make him overly bloated. He'd usually turn back home then but sometimes he'd keep going for days, stopping only for food or to crash in a motel room for a couple of hours sleep. Back then, his bike had been the cheapest pile of crap bike that he could find, it could barely go over 60mph and struggled going up sharp inclines… but that had been why he'd bought it in the first place, anything better and his dad was likely to sell it.

When he and Lisa were taken in by the Neumann family, they didn't understand why he refused to get rid of the bike or why he would sometimes run away without warning and he was adamant not to talk about it to them. It wasn't until the first time that they saw him have a panic attack, get on his bike and disappear for the rest of the day that they figured everything out. A few days later they bought him his first _real_ bike; they told him that if he was going to keep disappearing on them then he was going to do it on something that wasn't skirting the line between safe and unsafe; then they made him promise to text them and let them know he was safe and where he was every time that he stopped for a break.

That day had been the first time in over a decade that Len had felt like there was someone other than Lisa that actually cared about him and his safety. And so, where overindulgence reminded him of Lewis Snart, his motorbike reminded him of Tony and Mara Neumann and it was the one thing in the world that he could let himself spend a stupid amount of money on without having to taste bile rising in the back of his throat.

He wasn't going for a long ride tonight though, he hadn't needed to do that in almost seventeen years, he rode the five minutes back to his apartment and parked his bike in the closest space available, a couple of blocks from the front door. Without the cool wind whipping against his skin, though, Len began to feel the nerves bite at him. He wasn't going to admit this to her, but Lisa had been right when she suggested he'd had a terrible dating history over the past few years. But Barry was different than the others; he was honest and kind, his smile was bright and genuine and his words didn't hide any malicious meanings. Barry was too good for him.

And Len was so worried that he was going to fuck this up before anything even happened.

When his phone rang a little before half 8, Len took a moment to wonder if he was doing the right thing, Barry was just _so much_ younger than him. He decided to push that thought down for a little while as he picked up his mobile and clicked answer.

"Hello…?" He asked softly into the phone.

"Hey, Len. It's Barry," the younger man laughed nervously on the other end and Len settled a little deeper into his couch.

"I'm glad you rang," he said honestly. A part of him had wondered if Barry would change his mind given a little time to think it over and he was happy that _that_ part of him had been proven wrong.

"I'm glad you answered," Len could practically see Barry's blushing cheeks and wide smile. "How was your dinner with your sister?"

"If you consider someone insulting you and constantly digging into your personal life fun, then it was great."

"Sounds like a blast," Barry laughed and, _wow_ , Len really loved that laugh. He could tell from the butterflies in his stomach that he was falling for Barry Allen… but he'd worry about that later; for now, he'd just enjoy it.

[] [] []

Barry wasn't at work the next day; it was Friday but, working for the police, he had a different work week than most people. He'd just worked every day for the past six days and so now he had four "rest days". On Tuesday he would go back into work and his schedule had him working for five days followed by three more rest days. Then after that, he'd be working nights for five days. Barry always hated having to work nights, not just because they were 6 pm to 6 am shifts (after all, his quickly regenerative cells meant that he didn't need to get _nearly_ as much sleep as he had done before he'd become a speedster), but also because it meant that he couldn't do his bi-nightly Flash duties. He'd grumble to Cisco and Caitlin about that later, though; for now, Barry just tried to enjoy his day off.

He somehow managed to sleep in until after 10 am Friday morning. He checked his notifications with sleepy eyes before slowly getting out of bed. Joe would be fast asleep, only having got home from work about four hours ago, and so Barry was as slow and quiet as possible as he showered, got dressed and slipped downstairs for some breakfast. He didn't even bother making himself a pot of coffee, knowing he would ruin it somehow, and so he pulled on his converse and took a quick run to Jitters.

He saw Len and Audrey talking behind the counter as he walked towards the glass door and entered the coffee shop. He couldn't help but smile and blush when Len turned his head towards Barry and they made eye contact – he _really_ needed to get this blushing thing under control!

"Morning, Barry," Len drawled and Barry could almost picture him saying that as they lay in bed together, the morning sunlight streaming in through a crack in his curtains and his soft blankets only half-covering their naked bodies. He mentally shook himself to disperse the daydream – his imagination was always pushing for space in his consciousness first thing after he'd woken up… it was a real issue.

"Good morning," he managed to sputter out and wondered, not for the first time, why Len seemed to have any kind of romantic interest in him. The coffee shop was pretty empty this time on a weekday and so, after he received his drink, he got away with standing and talking to Len without worrying that the older man might get in trouble with his boss. "What's your favourite… colour?" Barry asked slowly, he'd already covered favourite sports, TV shows and cities. He knew this small talk was probably stupid but he liked getting to know the little things about people.

"Blue," Len replied pretty quickly and Barry stared deeply into Len's beautiful blue eyes and nodded dreamily in agreement.

"Blue's good," Len smirked at him.

"Are you flirting with me, Barry Allen?" He teased quietly after leaning in closer.

"Well… _yeah_ ," Barry replied with a nervous laugh and smiled happily when Len didn't bring up how terrible he was at flirting. He was just out of practice. "Favourite meal?"

"Pizza," Len replied as if it should be obvious. Barry laughed and rolled his eyes just slightly.

"You're so cliché,"

"Okay, fine… I like… pasta and meatballs. How about you?"

"Erm… probably Thai green curry," he answered slowly. He wasn't exactly a foodie but he did have a few different favourite meals to choose from. Len was silent for a moment before he started talking again.

"You know, I make a pretty good Thai green curry if you're interested? Tonight, maybe?" Len asked slowly and his face went carefully blank. Barry grinned over at him.

"I'd love to," he answered enthusiastically and then paused and put on a fake-suspicious face. "This wouldn't just be a ploy to get me to come back to your place now, would it?"

"Never," Len smirked. "Does eight sound good?" He asked and Barry nodded so Len gave him his address. Barry had just finished adding it to his phone when Audrey piped up.

"Hey, Barry, it's your favourite song," she said in a teasing tone from where she stood behind the counter. Barry looked over Len's shoulder to glare at her once he recognised the song that was playing, Poker Face by Lady Gaga. Len cast a look over at Audrey and her grinning face before his eyes landed back on Barry.

"It's not actually my favourite song," Barry muttered to him in defence of his music taste and Len smiled softly.

"I figured."

"It's just this joke…" Barry carried on, rambling. "I liked Lady Gaga's Facebook page once and so my friend, Cisco, who at the time I didn't actually know because he was just one of the people looking after me. Anyway, he saw it and assumed that I loved her songs so he played them to me on repeat when I was in a coma. I couldn't get them out of my head for months and-"

"Wait, you were in a coma?" Len interrupted and Barry realised that he hadn't told him that story yet.

"Uh, yeah… I was hit by lightning." Len's eyebrows shot up further than Barry thought they could go and he laughed nervously as he tried to organise his thoughts. He always got so _awkward_ when telling this story and he worried that people would get suspicious of him. Everyone who was injured during the particle accelerator explosion became a meta and it was just a matter of time before someone called him out on being one too… and then he could say goodbye to his secret identity. So, no, Barry figured it was best to just let everyone he knew forget that it ever happened. He also worried that he could never quite get the tone right when telling the story; getting struck by lightning and falling into a coma for nine months would be a tragic story for anyone else, but for Barry it was like he was reborn… it was the first time in his life that he started to feel in control of his fate and so it was a _good_ memory. He tried his best not to let that fact show through.

"It's okay, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Len said softly and the knot in Barry's stomach eased. He smiled shyly up at Len and let out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry, it's just…" Barry let his sentence drop and Len nodded.

"I get it." _No, you don't_ , Barry thought. Len had misunderstood Barry's reluctance to tell the story and Barry felt bad but he knew that it was best to just let Len believe that it was too traumatic an experience to talk about. "So, what _is_ your favourite song?" Len asked, changing the topic back to something more comfortable.

"Nothing Lady Gaga related," Barry laughed as he finished his earlier sentence. "Seriously, I couldn't get it out of my head. It almost drove me insane." Len huffed out a laugh and Barry took a sip of his coffee as he thought. "I like a lot of pop music… but I think my favourite song would be something R&B from the late 90's or early 2000's. Something by Mary J Blige, maybe…" Barry muttered and bit his lip and scratched the back of his neck. "What music do you like?"

"Pretty much anything," Len said with a shrug and then paused. "But I like 50's music best. Especially the jazz." Barry smiled up at him from where he was leaning over the countertop. Len's face was completely blank, everything but his eyes that shone with heavy emotions. He wondered what Len was thinking about for a moment before the older man averted his eyes. "It reminds me of my Grandad." He said softly and Barry nodded in understanding. Before either man could say anything else, though, Barry's phone began ringing. He jumped and grabbed it out of his pocket quickly, but not _too_ quickly.

"Hey, what's up?" He asked as casually as he could manage, knowing that there was likely only one reason that Cisco was calling him instead of texting.

"Barry, you gotta grab your suit quick. Weather Wizard showed up at Central Bank a couple of minutes ago and it looks like he's planning to leave with hostages."

"Got it. I'll be right there," Barry said into the phone and hung up. "Crime scene," he lied to Len with an apologetic smile and began to back up away from the counter.

"I thought you were off today?" Len said slowly and Barry tried not to grimace.

"I'm on call," he replied quickly, it was his go-to excuse for situations like this one. "I guess I'll see you tonight at eight." Barry grinned as he thought about their upcoming first date and Len nodded goodbye to him. He wanted to stay around a little longer but he knew that Mardon wasn't above killing people to get what he wanted and so he had to act fast. He walked as calmly out of the door and away from Jitters as he could manage, but the second he was able to get to an alleyway and out of anyone's sight, he sped to STAR Labs to pick up his Flash suit.

Fortunately, Barry wasn't distracted by Mark Mardon for very long. _Un_ fortunately, the criminal was able to get away. He tried to put that out of his mind though as he raced back to the house to get ready for his date with Len. He was nervous enough as it was, he didn't need to add worrying over what Mardon would do next to his list of problems.

He made a conscious decision to worry about Mardon tomorrow, tonight all he wanted to think about was his date. He spent fifteen minutes picking out what to wear, then he showered, decided he didn't like his choice, and spent _another_ fifteen minutes trying on the rest of his clothes. Finally, he decided on a red dress shirt with a pair of dark and slim stone-washed jeans and black dress shoes. He pulled at the neck of his collar for a moment as he looked at himself in the mirror; he'd feel much more comfortable in a hoodie and trainers but he figured that it was better to dress like as much of a grown up as possible so as to play down the age difference a bit, since Len seemed so unnerved by it.

He questioned his decision one last time and wondered if maybe he should just put the hoodie on after all. The age difference existed, it was something Len was just going to have to deal with… He began to unbutton his shirt as he eyed his collection of baggy hoodies, but then he stopped and bit his lip. He knew that he looked much better in a shirt than he did a hoodie and this _was_ a date. People always dressed out of their comfort zones on first dates…

He buttoned the shirt back up and stared at his reflection judgingly, before he had time to question his clothes again, though, he heard the front door open downstairs and Iris calling his name. He moved to the top of the stairs and stared down at her.

"Iris? Did we have plans tonight?" He asked, feeling incredibly guilty about forgetting.

"Nope," she called back and the twist in Barry's stomach eased a little bit as he began to walk down the stairs. "But Eddie's on the night shift with Dad and so I thought that we could have a movie night." She was carrying a take-out bag that she settled on the table before turning to Barry with a big smile. "Like we used to have when we were teenagers."

"I… uh…" he was suddenly in two minds; stuck between Iris and Len, his _almost_ past and his potential future.

"Oh my god, you're going on a date," she said, eyes wide, before Barry could answer.

"Erm, sort of," he laughed nervously. "How did you know?"

"You're wearing a shirt. You _never_ wear a dress shirt unless you're going on a date. Is it with cute coffee shop guy?" She asked and Barry nodded.

"Yeah, but I can cancel if you need me…" he responded, not actually sure which answer he'd prefer her to give. She smacked him lightly on the arm as she replied with a huge grin on her face.

"Don't be stupid, Barry," she exclaimed and he was simultaneously relieved and nauseated at her excited for him. " _You_ go on your date." She picked up the bag of take-out off the table and hugged it to her side. " _I_ will ring you tomorrow for details." She moved towards Barry and pulled him into a quick side-hug with her free arm. "Enjoy your night. You look _great_ , by the way."

And like that, Iris raced out of there. Barry wasn't quite sure what to do for a moment, but then he noticed the time and realised he only had a few more minutes to finish getting ready before he had to leave to meet Len. Thinking about Len made the butterflies appear in his stomach again and Barry retold himself that tonight was about him and Len and he wasn't going to let anyone else get in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've not written trigger warnings much before but I'll give it a go: in this chapter, Len thinks back to when he used to have panic attacks as a teenager and mentions his coping method for it. There's also an implication that he had depression but it's never explicitly said. The panic attacks themselves are very briefly described and very generalised and it's said that he hasn't had any major attacks in almost seventeen years.


	5. Blow Your Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two important things about this chapter: Number 1, it's split into 3 sections; for people who don't like reading smut I suggest you skip the middle section ;) I tried to leave as much dialogue and plot out of that section as possible but if you want to know the jist of the emotional crap then I did a recap in the authors note at the end. Number 2, there are more _TRIGGER warnings_ because Len briefly thinks about how he was abused as a child. Read the AN at the end for more info.

Barry arrived outside Len's apartment a few minutes early and he took a moment to fix his hair and clothes before he strolled up the steps and into the building. He found Len's apartment door easily enough and he had to put effort into making sure his hand didn't start to vibrate from his nerves and excitement as he knocked on the door. Len opened it a moment later and Barry was greeted with a small smile.

"Hey," Barry grinned up at him and Len welcomed him into his apartment, the fragrant smell of Thai food clung to the air and Barry clenched his stomach to stop it from rumbling loudly.

Len gave a short tour as he led Barry towards the kitchen and Barry looked around interestedly. The walls were painted light and the furniture was all dark woods and warm colours. There were a few cardboard boxes stacked up in one corner that showed Len was still unpacking and had only moved into the apartment recently but other than that the place was spotless, there wasn't even a watermark on the coffee table.

"It smells great," Barry admitted as he followed behind Len, thankful that he'd eaten two of Cisco's special energy bars today so that he wouldn't end up excessively eating in front of Len tonight.

"Thanks," Len smiled as he took the lid off of the pan and stirred the curry. "It'll be about ten minutes. I just have to finish the rice." As he said this, he turned on a second hob and placed a frying pan over it. He added oil and a small bit of garlic before emptying a half-full bag of frozen, pre-chopped, onion into the pan.

"Wait, you can _buy_ pre-chopped onion?" Barry asked incredulously as he took the bag from Len's hands. "Where has this been all of my life?" Len smiled brightly at him, causing Barry to blush.

"I'd normally chop them myself but I don't think it's very good etiquette to cry on a first date," he muttered playfully and Barry laughed.

"Oh yeah, I'd be out of here so fast you'd think I was the Flash," Barry joked before he could stop himself. He shouldn't be saying things like that but it had made Len laugh briefly so he couldn't find it within himself to feel bad about it.

"You like the Flash?" Len asked as he added a bunch of spices and ingredients in with the frying onion and Barry felt his neck and chest heat up… _at least_ this _blush was less noticeable_ , he thought to himself.

"Yeah, sure," he responded because he wasn't feeling in much of a self-deprecating mood. He watched Len empty a drainer of cooked rice into the frying pan and stir until it was fully coated in all of the seasonings and vegetables. It looked, _and smelt_ , really good. But his appetite was calmed when Len didn't say anything more than ' _huh_ '. Barry started to worry that maybe Len wasn't as keen on his alter ego as most other people were. "You don't like him?" He asked slowly, needing to know the truth. It wasn't exactly a deal breaker but it did make him doubt himself just a little bit.

"No, of course I do," Len answered right away and Barry let out a breath that he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "I'm just a little surprised you do. I mean, aren't all police supposed to hate vigilantes?"

"Well, maybe…" he replied after a second of remembering the less-than-friendly conversations he'd overheard in the precinct between angry cops. It was only a minority at this point, but some police officers still weren't very pleased that the Flash was doing their jobs better than them. "But I'm a lab tech; a geek at heart. Science and superpowers are what I live for."

"Well, at least I know that you'll get along with my sister just fine." Barry's chest felt warm as he heard that and his eyes lingered on Len's lips, and the small smile that clung there, just a little too long. He averted his gaze as Len placed a lid on the frying pan and stepped back from the hob.

"She likes science?" He asked quietly and Len shook his head, heading to the fridge.

"She likes superheroes." He opened the fridge door and pulled out a bottle of rosé wine. "She has the guy on text alert and messages me whenever he does something spectacular; which is basically every day at this point." Barry couldn't help but blush at that and he hoped that Len didn't read too much into the pink in his cheeks. "Do you drink wine? I forgot to ask earlier," Len mentioned as he opened the bottle easily and opened a cupboard filled with glasses.

"Yeah, sure," Barry said happily and Len pulled down two wine glasses, filling them both with the pink, fizzing liquid. Barry didn't usually drink anymore because alcohol was more expensive and it just wasn't worth it when he couldn't feel the dizzying glow of being drunk anymore – that didn't mean that he didn't enjoy the taste of drinks like wine and cider, though. The white wine he found too sharp and red was usually too bitter, but rosé was sweet and fruity so he was more than happy to have a glass every now and again.

Barry wondered if he imagined the way that Len's eyes roamed over his body as he handed Barry one of the glasses and Barry couldn't do anything more than hope his face was a lighter red than his shirt was as he took a sip of the drink. Len copied his movements before moving back to the food. He stirred it quickly and then turned it off and began to pull out plates and serve the spiced fried rice with Thai green curry.

Barry moved out of the way and decided to stand by the kitchen table, making small talk about the wine as Len carried the plates over. He positioned the plates so that Barry and Len would be facing each other as they ate and Barry noticed that the cutlery was already laid out so he took the nearest seat.

He had a bite of the meal the moment that Len sat down and moaned quietly. He enthused to Len about how good a cook he was in-between mouthfuls of food, somehow managing _not_ to shovel it all down his throat without breathing, and was a little disappointed when he couldn't make the older man blush. That was his new goal, he decided; he'd gotten Len to smile and laugh and so now he would make him blush.

They made small talk all through dinner but it didn't feel awkward. If anything, Barry was actually feeling more confident as the night grew later, which was an odd feeling for him. The only time he ever really felt truly confident or in control was when he was the Flash… and that was more acting than anything else.

He finished every bite on his plate and leaned back in his chair, feeling incredibly satisfied. Len smiled freely throughout their date and Barry was loving seeing his less-guarded expressions, but it also kind of made him realise how much Len obviously hid of himself and he wondered briefly about why that was.

They chatted at the table for a few minutes after they'd both finished eating, talking about their favourite shows and films. Barry was excited to find out that Len loved Game of Thrones and they playfully argued about the R + L = J theory for almost ten minutes. After a moment Len stood up and carried their plates back to the kitchen sink, filling it up with warm soapy water and letting them soak. Barry picked up his glass and stood up, leaning against one of the counters. His eyes caught sight of an object, the one thing that was seemingly out of place in Len's apartment: a CD lay on the countertop. As he looked closer at it he realised it was an R&B collection CD and that it still had the clear wrap covering it as though it'd only been bought today.

"What's this?" Barry teasingly asked as he picked up the CD and Len smiled.

"Huh, I forgot about that," he said slowly, shutting off the tap and towel drying his hands. "I walk past a music shop on my way home from work and they had a sale on today. So I thought you might like something while we ate." Len shrugged and Barry could feel his smile stretching his lips as it grew wide. "It doesn't have any Lady Gaga on it. I double checked," Len smirked and Barry let out a short huff of laughter.

"We could listen to it now," Barry suggested. It made his heart ache happily to know that Len had gone out of his way to make sure he had music in that Barry liked.

"Sure," Len smirked. He took the disk from Barry's hands and led them into the living room. He put the CD into his sound system and Blow Your Mind by Eve and Gwen Stefani began to play quietly through the speakers. Barry's smile widened even more as he heard the song start. Len was just turning around from the CD player when Barry moved towards him. Barry, still feeling surprisingly confident, made the first move. He reached out towards Len and wrapped his hand around the back of the older man's neck, his fingers brushing against his sheared hair, and Len's eyes flicked from Barry's down to his lips and back up again. Len leant up at the same moment that Barry leant down and their lips brushed softly against one another. It was indulgent and chaste at first, almost hesitant, nothing more than a simple press.

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Barry's lips were soft against Len's, tasting like sweet wine, and he enjoyed the softness of their touch. He hadn't kissed anyone he actually cared about for too long; lately, it had just been drunken one night stands with men and women he'd met at bars… and there was nothing soft and sweet about that. They were nothing like this. Nothing like Barry.

It was only a moment before the younger man was pulling back, though Barry's hand stayed steady on the back of Len's neck as though he wasn't sure if he should let go or not. Len didn't want Barry to let go. He didn't want this moment to end. He didn't want to stop tasting the sweetness on Barry's lips. He wrapped his arms around Barry's waist, though not so tight that the younger man couldn't move away if he wanted to, and he pulled him closer; Barry went with him freely, going pliable under Len's touch and kissing him once again, though this time it was more urgently. The heat radiating from Barry's body made Len's stomach feel warm and he smiled against the younger man's lips. He felt Barry curl his fingers a little tighter around the back of Len's neck and bring his other hand up to rest on Len's chest.

He pushed against Barry's lips, opening them with his own and tasting more of that sweet wine on the younger man's tongue. Unconsciously his thumbs began to rub circles on Barry's hips and soon the younger man had to pull away again, breathless, and he laughed nervously as he did so. Len watched him quietly with a small, genuine, smile on his face and noticed Barry's blush spreading across his face and down his neck.

"I love these songs," Barry muttered. "They remind me of being a teenager."

"You need reminding of when you were a teenager?" Len teased. "Wasn't that only last year?"

"Oh shut up," Barry murmured, he was blushing a beautiful shade of red and Len couldn't resist interrupting whatever it was the younger man had been about to say by kissing the words away. Barry easily melted back into him, leaning in to deepen the kiss even further as Len felt Barry's tongue brush against his lower lip. He moaned quietly and flicked his own tongue against Barry's, invitingly.

They were still standing in the middle of the room and so Len tugged Barry with him, not letting their lips part for more than a second, as he took a few steps back until he was leaning against the back of the sofa. Barry's hands slid down Len's front and slowly wrapped around his waist, resting against the material of his thin dress shirt. Len pulled at Barry's hips lightly, subconsciously, wanting them to be even closer still. In contrast, he continued to push and bite at the younger man's lips, loving every noise Barry made; every moan, every hitch in his breath, everything that Barry could give him.

Barry caught Len's lower lip in between his teeth and pulled softly, eliciting another soft moan from the older man. Barry released it after only a few seconds but it remained throbbing pleasantly as they continued to kiss. Barry moved his mouth across Len's jaw and left soft wet kisses up to his ear. He sucked the lobe past his lips and nibbled on it lightly as his fingers scrunched the fabric of Len's shirt and tugged, untucking it from his pants hastily. Len felt himself growing hard and growled out Barry's name in between soft moans. Barry's hands clung to Len's shirt for a moment longer before slipping underneath the thin material and pressing against Len's abs.

His palms were warm and they made Len's stomach flip… or maybe that was due to Barry's mouth, which had released his ear and was trailing slowly down his neck. Len tilted his head to allow Barry better access. The younger man moved his lips to the dip at the bottom of Len's neck and tongued at his pulse point before biting a kiss just above. Len shook and moaned at Barry's skilled mouth on his neck; he managed to loosen his hold on the younger man's hips long enough to wrap his arms around Barry's back and then lower his hands to the other man's ass.

Barry gasped as Len squeezed his ass, his breath breezing over the wet mark on Len's neck and the older man shivered at the cool contrast to Barry's warm, welcoming mouth. He squeezed his ass again and used it to pull Barry closer, feeling the younger man's erection press against his thigh as he did so. Len tilted his head back in Barry's direction and caught his lips with his own, kissing him hungrily and encouraging the younger man to buck his hips against Len's thigh. After a second, though, he shifted his body and rearranged Barry so that their dicks lined up through the fabric of their clothes. Then he held Barry still as he slowly, and purposefully, rolled his hips. Barry gasped and moaned against Len's lips. They continued like that for a few seconds and Barry ran his fingers gently up Len's bare chest under his shirt, making goosebumps rise on his skin.

Barry stayed in place as he moved his hands away from Len's body and desperately began to unbutton the older man's shirt. Len tensed. As much as he wanted this, wanted _Barry_ , he was worried to actually let it go any further. And it wasn't just the age difference that was bothering him anymore, though _19 years_ was a hell of an age gap. But now Barry was going to _see_ him… and he wasn't exactly pretty underneath his shirt; his torso was littered with old tattoos that barely concealed even older scars.

Now he was thinking about it… he was surprised Barry hadn't noticed the rough texture of his skin where his scars were. Or maybe he _had_ noticed and chose to ignore it. That thought settled Len's mind a little and he half-hoped it was true because he didn't want Barry to start thinking of him any differently and he _definitely_ didn't want the younger man's pity.

He forced his shoulders to relax and let the tension drain out of him as Barry undid the last button on his shirt and immediately pushed it open and off of Len's shoulders, the piece of clothing didn't move far though as Len still had a firm hold of Barry's ass and he wasn't quite feeling ready to let go yet. He told himself that he just wasn't done feeling the younger man up yet but he knew that the real reason was that, as long as he was kneading Barry's ass, the shirt couldn't come completely off yet and it was still partially able to shield him from Barry's eyes.

Barry took in Len's tattoo-covered torso quickly and he smiled as he dipped down to place a wet kiss against the closest one to his mouth: a tattoo of a broken clock that lay just below his left collarbone, its gears visible under the hands and its outer shell crumbling away like rubble. Len was thankful that Barry kissed it dead centre because if he was a few more inches to the left then his lips would have brushed over the cigarette burns that Len's father had left him, the ones that were hidden by the debris of the clock. Len still wasn't sure if Barry had noticed any of his scars yet and if he _hadn't_ … well, Len wasn't exactly in a rush for him to find out about them.

"You like tattoos?" Len asked, his voice was rough but even and so he was able to pass it off as due to arousal and not because of the knots in his stomach and chest… knots that he hoped would fade quickly because he desperately didn't want to ask Barry to stop.

"Yeah," Barry blushed and placed another kiss on Len's neck, his hands hovering over the older man's zipper. "I always wanted one but I guess I didn't have the courage." Len smiled and dipped his head to kiss Barry again as his worries and nerves began to drift away. Len felt the pressure around his cock start to ease as Barry flicked the button open and slowly unzipped Len's trousers. Barry wrapped his hands around the small of Len's back and teasingly moved them over Len's ass, tugging his trousers and briefs down as he did. Len felt himself harden even further as his erection was slowly set free from his briefs. Barry broke the kiss and looked down Len's mostly naked body, his eyes ghosting over his torso and landing on his dick.

Len stayed still as he continued to let Barry take control and waited to see what the younger man was going to do. But if all Barry was going to do was stare then, soon, he was going to be forced to take measures into his own hands. The younger man looked like he was about to say something, then stopped and blushed a very dark red.

"What do you want?" Len asked, pretty sure that at this point he would do anything Barry wanted him to do.

"I… I want to blow you," Barry stuttered and Len bit the inside of his lower lip gently as he momentarily pictured how that would look; he felt his heart rate quicken. He nodded and his eyes darted quickly around his living room before they landed on his wallet, thankfully only a few feet away, on a side table. He let go of Barry and, subtly, tugged his shirt until it was settled comfortably on his shoulders again as he reached over. He quickly retrieved a condom and dropped his wallet back onto the sofa that he was leaning against. Barry took the offered condom wordlessly and then dropped to his knees in front of Len, who clutched the top of the sofa and watched Barry's every movement.

Barry was quick to slip the condom onto Len's waiting cock, his warm hands sliding nicely over his erection, and wasted no time before wrapping his lips around the head. Len swallowed thickly as he watched his cock slowly disappear into Barry warm, wet, mouth. He let out a stuttering breath and swore quietly as Barry moved his mouth lower and lower down Len's cock. He'd taken him in almost entirely before he started to pull back up again and that was quite a feat considering how… _well-endowed_ Len was.

Len shivered as the cool air wrapped around his dampened cock and Barry sucked on his head before licking along the throbbing vein at the underneath of Len's dick.

" _Barry_ ," Len moaned loudly, dropping his head back and tilting his face towards the ceiling as he got lost in the sensations of Barry's mouth and tongue. His right hand drifted from clutching the back of the sofa and his fingers threaded into Barry's hair encouragingly. He felt the younger man suck and lick at him some more before taking him all in again.

Then Barry did… _something_. Len wasn't sure what it was exactly but it felt amazing and had his eyes shooting open immediately, pulling the lewdest moan from his lips. Len looked back down at Barry as the man bobbed his head up and down Len's cock; his eyes were closed, his lips red and his hair a complete mess. He looked absolutely breath-taking.

The room drifted quiet for a moment as the songs changed and Len was able to hear the wet noises that Barry was making, his cock jumped in the younger man's mouth because of them. Barry opened his eyes and looked directly up at Len's face before slowly pulling off his dick. Barry began stroking him as he caught a bit of his breath back and Len couldn't help telling him he was beautiful… which, obviously, made the younger man blush a deep red that Len thought made him look even more gorgeous. He didn't say that, though, and Barry didn't reply. The younger man, instead, mouthed at Len's cock once more before sucking it back between his lips. Len couldn't help but close his eyes; his breathing picked up, he was getting close. Barry continued to bob his head and Len started muttering curses under his breath as he got closer and closer to his climax.

But then he heard the door open and his eyes shot open, staring in horror as he watched his sister walk in.

"Hey, Lenn- _Oh, my God_!"

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Lisa trudged up the stairs with her over-night bag in her hands after having had _another_ argument with her boyfriend. Her head was in the clouds as she used her key to unlock the door to her brother's apartment. She really needed to get everything with Roscoe sorted out soon, she couldn't keep sleeping on Len's couch. As she got into the hallway she heard the music playing from the living room and headed in that direction; she noticed that it wasn't Len's usual type of music right away but didn't think much about it as she pushed open the living room door.

"Hey, Lenny," she began to call out before she really saw the scene in front of her: Her brother was standing with his shirt open and his trousers around his ankles as another guy was kneeling in front of Len, sucking him off. " _Oh my God_!" She shouted, cutting off her own greeting, as she immediately closed her eyes and turned away. She heard a thud from the two guys behind her and Len inhaling sharply.

"I am _so_ sorry," said an unfamiliar male voice.

"It's okay, you just winded me a little bit…" Len replied, his voice just a little bit higher pitched than usual, and Lisa figured that the first guy had accidentally head-butted Len in his stomach. "Considering the situation it could have gone a lot worse."

"Is your dick away, yet?" Lisa asked, hoping to _God_ that the image of her brother getting a blowjob wouldn't haunt her for the rest of her life. "Is it safe to turn around?"

" _Yes_ ," Len grunted and damn, this was _not_ how she was planning her afternoon going; first breaking up with her boyfriend, perhaps for good this time, and now _this_! Nope, it was definitely not Lisa's day. She turned around very carefully and saw a frustrated looking Len buttoning up his shirt while standing next to a _very_ red-faced kid; the guy was young and tall with a mess of dark hair and after a moment she recognised him as the guy from the coffee shop that Len had a thing for. "Lisa, Barry. Barry, my sister Lisa," Len introduced shortly and the kid could barely make eye-contact with her.

"You know what, I'm just gonna go," Lisa announced; she could get a room at a hotel for the night instead. She saw Len's eyes flick down to her overnight bag, looking conflicted, as she turned around. But it was Barry who spoke up.

"No, it's okay. I should really be going anyway," the guy laughed nervously. He turned to Len and looked like he wanted to go in for a kiss goodbye but thought better of it. "I'll talk to you later," he muttered; then he turned and practically ran away. "Nice meeting you," he muttered as he rushed past her and then Len sighed, leaning back against the sofa.

"Sorry that I interrupted your date… not that I knew you were _on_ a date…" she said slowly.

"Not that I gave you a key, either…" Len replied as he looked pointedly at the key she was still clutching tightly in her hand. "What did Roscoe do this time?" He asked before she could say anything else and Lisa shrugged.

"Nothing really; just our same old arguments." Len nodded and sighed again, running his hand down his face and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'll get you a blanket and pillow," he said. He got up and patted her shoulder comfortingly as he moved past her. Lisa stayed still for a moment before she slowly made her way towards the sofa. She dropped her bag onto the seat and then collapsed into the cushions as she tried desperately to forget everything that had happened today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the trigger warning actually happens while Barry and Len are making out in the middle section of the fic (don't worry, it's not dub-con). Len briefly thinks about his scars, which include a few cigarette burns, and how he was abused as a child by Lewis. He thinks about it because Barry is unbuttoning his shirt and Len wonders how he'll react if he notices them. The scars are covered by tattoos and in the heat of the moment Barry doesn't actually notice them and so they don't have any heart-touching or angsty conversations about the scars in this chapter. That's basically the only triggering moment in the chapter and is also the jist of the emotional crap that happens during the smut section. So, for anyone who didn't read it because you don't like smut, you've not missed much/any real plot.
> 
> I feel like Len was really out of character in this chapter? So I'm sorry about that. New chapter will either be on the 13th or 20th May. I'll aim for the 13th but my exams start on Tuesday (*cries*) so idk if I'll be too stressed to write much for the next couple of weeks.


	6. Snippet 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a fluffy chapter but it turned into a very short and angsty one instead. Enjoy.

Barry held his head in his hands as he collapsed onto a chair in Jitters. He knew that Len wasn't working today which is why he was okay with it when Iris had insisted on meeting here. He didn't know how he'd be able to deal with seeing Len right now, after the disastrous ending to their date last night.

He couldn't believe he'd blown Len on their first date! And, worse than that, he couldn't believe that Lisa had walked in on it. To say that Barry was mortified would be an understatement. But until that point, he'd had a good time. Len was funny, smart, sweet, a great cook (not to mention that he was built like a brick, covered in hot tattoos, and was definitely, er… _well endowed_ ). Len was practically perfect, their date had been practically perfect. Which was why Barry _needed_ Iris' coaching on how to continue after the less-than-perfect blowjob. He knew it was going to be awkward talking to her about this but he needed to get past that because he was trying to move on, after all.

Barry nursed his cup of coffee until Iris showed up a couple of minutes later. She was wearing a dark grey pantsuit with a lilac silk shirt and it was as though she commanded the attention of everyone in the room the second that she entered it. Not for the first time, Barry thought that she'd be capable of taking over the world; but she was too sweet to even think of using her power over people for world domination. Barry wanted to be like her, _like Len_ , confident and sexy with the ability to turn mere mortals like himself into mumbling, quivering idiots with only a smile. He tried to be that way when he was the Flash, he even succeeded to some part, but when he was just Barry it was more difficult… he had no mask to give him confidence and, as far as most people knew, no speed to give him power.

Iris' hair looked as soft and light as her shirt did as she glided to Barry's table and sat down.

"Hey, thanks for the coffee," she spoke softly before picking up the cup that Barry had placed in front of her seat. He awkwardly mumbled a 'no problem' but she probably didn't hear him. " _So_ … how was your date?" She smiled brightly as she asked the question and Barry refused to let himself grimace. However, he unfortunately had no control over his blush. "Oh my _God_. You got laid!" She squealed and Barry spluttered on his sip of coffee. He coughed for air and his eyes watered as he shook his head violently.

"What… no. No!" He eventually managed to say.

"Well, that's disappointing…" she said with a shrug. "So what _did_ happen? Come on, I want details."

"I… went down on him," he said slowly and then hid his head in his hands as he noticed Iris' eyes widen slightly, resulting in the rest of his sentence being partially distorted. "And then his sister walked in."

" _Oh_ … while you were…?" Barry peaked at her through his fingers to see she was gesturing vaguely with her hands.

"Yep."

"Wow, oh my God; that is… awkward."

"Tell me about it," he snarked monotonously.

"What did you do?"

"I… I ran away," he admitted. "And now I don't know what to do, Iris. I really like him and I think I may have just messed this up."

"Okay…" she thought things over as she took another mouthful of her coffee. "You're just going to have to go on like normal and put it all behind you. Ring him, let him know you're still interested and that you're willing to go on a second date if he is."

"Isn't there an option that includes less talking and more of me hiding in my room and eating ice-cream?" Barry complained and Iris laughed.

"I'm afraid not, Bear."

[] [] []

Len was _not_ having a good morning. For starters, he was hungover; having finished the bottle of wine last night and moved on to a bottle of whisky he'd had stashed in his cupboard. He usually didn't drink that much but he figured having his date end with his sister walking in on him getting a blowjob was a good enough reason to drown his troubles in alcohol. His hangover made him remember, with startling clarity, the exact reason for his excessive drinking last night and Len cringed to himself. He also checked his phone, hoping to find a text or missed call from Barry. But his notifications where empty. Len considered ringing Barry but his eyes began to throb from looking at the bright screen of his mobile for too long and Len decided it was probably best to leave it a little longer before attempting any kind of important human interaction.

His headache became mind-numbing as he crawled out of his bed and he couldn't help but reminisce about his youth; he'd never suffered from hangovers before he'd turned thirty… ageing was a cruel, _cruel_ , process. After the room had finally stopped spinning, Len forced his body to take him towards the kitchen where he made a staggering discovery: he was out of bacon.

A hangover without hangover-food was just plain torture. He looked from the fridge to the dull light entering the kitchen through the edge of the blinds and groaned, knowing that he'd have to go to the shop but dreading the sun making his migraine worse. He took a couple of minutes to rummage through his still-packed boxes and eventually managed to find a pair of sunglasses in one. Sneaking out without waking his sister was more difficult but he managed that somehow too. The hardest part, though, was as he was walking past Jitters and happened to glance inside and saw Barry with his head in his hands and looking… sad. There was no better way to describe the drawn look on the kid's features. Len knew that he himself looked like utter crap in that moment and it was preferable that Barry never, _ever_ , saw him looking hungover… but he was overcome with the urge to go inside and talk to him. Len paused at the window for a moment, unsure how to continue, but a few seconds later the door to the coffee shop opened and in sauntered the girl, Iris; she paused only for a moment before heading directly to Barry's side.

Barry's entire body just relaxed and lit up as he saw her and Len… Len understood the meaning behind that look. Barry had told him she was his foster sister. _Foster_. They weren't related; not by blood and not even by law. And that _look_. Len could see now that Barry was in love with Iris. He turned away from them quickly and began to shuffle away before one of them turned and caught him staring. He walked on towards the corner store feeling disappointed… disheartened. And maybe the beginning of something stronger too: an emotion that he didn't want to put a name to because it was probably a little too strong for him to be feeling after losing someone that he'd only just met. Though, he hadn't really lost him, had he? Because Barry was never actually his to lose in the first place.

Len felt idiotic as he thought it over. The evidence had been right there from the very beginning. Barry was only 26, still a kid really, of course he wasn't looking for anything real with Len, a guy almost 20 years older than him. Barry only wanted sex. And Len… Len wasn't sure how he felt about that. He'd really started to like Barry and he wasn't sure if he was okay with this just being about sex. Now he had a decision to make: Len could either continue to date Barry and potentially get his heart broken later, or he could cut his losses and break up with the kid now.

By the time he had bought his bacon and gone back to his apartment, making sure to avoid Jitters, Len had already decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, cliffhanger. Comment and let me know what you think Len is going to do :)
> 
> Also, my exams are over and Uni has finished so I should be able to start my weekly updates again.


	7. Jitter Bug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, sorry. Also, it sucks. _Very badly_. So, I'm sorry about that too. The next chapter is better though and fairly angsty, so hold in there because I'm slowly getting towards the plot.

Barry stared at his phone as he sat, alone, on his bed. He felt like he might have needed Iris' support to be capable of making this call to Len but she had to go back to meet Eddie for a late lunch. He was okay, though. He could do this. Barry took a deep breath and clicked on Len's phone number to call him.

"Hello?" Len answered after only a few rings.

"Hi," Barry replied a little breathlessly. _He could do this_. "I just wanted to ring and see how you were doing."

"Barry. I…" there was a brief pause before Len continued. "I'm doing fine. How are you? You seemed a little… unnerved after Lisa walked in." _Understatement_ , Barry thought but didn't say.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he blushed.

"Forget about it. Look, Barry, I'm glad that you called. I need to talk to you. I'm… I'm a bit busy with Lisa right now though, do you think you could swing by Jitters tomorrow after the morning rush?" Barry smiled to himself.

"Yeah. That sounds perfect. I'll see you then."

"Great. Goodbye, Barry."

"See ya later, Len." Barry hung up the phone and felt the butterflies in his chest settle: everything was going to be okay. Afterwards, he texted Iris about what Len had said and she invited herself along. Barry was more than happy to agree to meet her outside Jitters at 11 and then they could go for an early lunch together afterwards.

[] [] []

"Still dressing to impress, I see," Iris smirked as they met up the next morning before heading into Jitters. Barry looked down at the blazer he'd thrown on over the top of the only Henley he owned: brown with a darker shade around the buttons and visible black stitching.

"I'm trying too hard, aren't I?" He asked nervously and Iris just smiled.

"You look cute, it's fine." They walked together towards the entrance of Jitters and Barry went through the door first, his eyes immediately finding Len who was leaning against one of the tables, cleaning a stain. Barry beamed at him once Len turned around and met his eyes, but the smile he received in return seemed a little bit off. Then Len's eyes flicked from Barry's to Iris standing behind him and back; as Barry approached, Len's face fell blank.

Iris went to the counter to order for them and also give him a little bit of privacy with Len. Earlier, Barry had made a decision to act more confident, and so he greeted Len with a quick, chaste, kiss.

"Hey."

"Barry," Len said, his face still carefully blank. It made Barry's stomach twist a little bit… maybe Len was more bothered by how their last date had ended than he'd led Barry to believe? If that was true then he _really_ didn't want Len to dwell on that thought. He quickly removed the flyer from his blazer pocket and smoothed it out before showing it to Len.

"I saw this last night when walking home and I thought you might like to go?" He asked. "With me?" Len took the flyer from Barry's hands and looked it over: it was advertising a 50's night at a local bar and read in big red letters at the bottom of the page that only those dressed in time appropriate clothes would be admitted. "I know that the 50's weren't exactly idealistic…" Barry began to babble nervously as Len continued to look at the flyer without saying anything. "Like, if we were dating back then, then we would have probably been chemically castrated or something. But I'm like 99% sure that no castration will occur tomorrow and I have it on pretty good authority that the music was good even if the society wasn't…" a bubble of laughter escaped him as Len slowly lifted his eyes to meet Barry's. But then Len was smiling too, and his eyes looked just a little bit brighter.

"Good authority, huh?" Len muttered and Barry knew that he was probably blushing, even if he couldn't yet feel the heat in his cheeks. "It sounds fun."

"Great! I… er, I suppose I'll meet you there at eight?" Barry was grinning and he wasn't ashamed to admit it but Len was still acting a little weird, especially when Iris came back to join them with her coffee.

"Hey, we haven't been properly introduced," she said with a grin and offered Len her hand to shake. "I'm Iris, Barry's best friend."

"Pleasure. I'm Len." He had a polite smile on his face but Barry realised that it didn't reach his eyes and he worried for a moment about what was wrong. But before Barry could think about how to bring it up, the tension in Len's shoulders drained away. "You're engaged," Len noted and Iris beamed as she took back her hand to look at her engagement ring. Barry hoped that his smile didn't look too forced as he watched the interaction, knowing that Iris was about to start gushing about Eddie. And Barry had nothing against Eddie… he just could do without the heartache of being secretly in love with a girl who was very openly in love with someone else.

"His name's Eddie," Iris said and went on to talking about how he'd proposed. Well, the watered down version of the proposal that the two had settled on which didn't include anything to do with the Flash or Eobard Thawne.

"We should probably get going," Barry said after Iris had explained the proposal and before she could get onto the rest of the wedding plans. Iris nodded.

"Right, of course. It was lovely to meet you, Len," Iris said and Len smiled as he returned the sentiment.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Barry," Len drawled and then kissed him chastely on the cheek, making Barry blush as he said goodbye.

[] [] []

Len wondered again if he should cancel his plans with Barry. The boy was in love with Iris, which was made even more obvious yesterday when the pair had visited him at work. Len did care for Barry but he wanted a real relationship and not just a fling. On the other hand, Iris was engaged to another man and noticeably in love with this Eddie person… so maybe Barry was actually trying to move on? That would make Len the rebound. He didn't like being a rebound either but he liked it better than being a fling.

Len sighed as he looked over his suit which he currently had laid out on his bed. It was plain black so it was probably 50's enough to get him entrance to the bar but he'd gone into a charity shop on the way home from work and bought a coat and hat to go with it. He was honestly excited to go on this date, but it didn't change the fact that yesterday morning he'd been planning on breaking up with Barry. The only reason that he hadn't was because he didn't want to break up with the kid in front of his friend. Len felt bad for going on this date with him, but apart from breaking up with Barry over the phone (which was _not_ an option. He did have _some_ class, after all), there wasn't really a way to get out of it.

Len got dressed and decided to just enjoy his night. And if he managed to make up his mind again and decided that being a rebound wasn't good enough either then he'd break up with Barry tonight.

He'd already looked up the bar's address and was confident that he knew his way there and so Len grabbed his helmet and rode his bike to the bar instead of taking a cab. He arrived about fifteen minutes early so he swapped his helmet for his hat and went inside to order him and Barry drinks as he waited for his date to arrive. Waiting didn't bother him though, it was in his nature to be early and so he'd gotten used to hanging back with a drink a long time ago. Also, it gave him more time to think about whether or not he was going to break up with Barry.

It was ten minutes later when the man in question arrived and Len stood up a little straighter as he looked the younger man over and appreciated how he looked dressed in a simple black suit with a grey vest and white shirt. Barry was grinning as he walked towards Len and placed a kiss on his lips.

"Hey, you look great," Barry enthused as he leaned back out of Len's space again.

"As do you," Len stated; he tipped his hat to Barry and watched the blush rise on the man's ears and neck. He gave Barry the beer he'd bought for him which the younger man sipped happily as he his eyes danced across the decorated room.

"So, this is the kind of music that you like?" Barry asked as he listened to the song pouring smoothly from the speakers and Len shrugged; he hadn't heard the current song that was playing before but the style was soothing in its familiarity.

"Would you like to dance?" Len eventually offered once he noticed Barry's eyes lingering on the dancefloor area where several couples were swaying together. Barry bit his lip as he looked over to Len.

"Yeah, I'd love to. I have to admit though that I don't, _really_ , know… how…" Barry answered very slowly and Len put both of their drinks back onto the bar counter before offering Barry his hand.

"I'll show you." Barry smiled sheepishly over to him and followed Len's lead onto the dancefloor. And Barry… well, he danced like he had two left feet. But he smiled widely and laughed brightly whenever he made a mistake, and it just made Len feel lighter as though all his troubles had left him for the night. Barry learnt a few simple dances quickly enough and soon they were dancing and talking as though they had known each other forever.

And when the night got later and the crowd in the bar began to thin, Len ordered Barry a taxi and took him outside to wait for it to show. Barry leaned in close, his eyes sparkling mischievously before he closed them and captured Len's lips in a kiss. The kiss skirted the line between dirty and sweet. Len didn't much like public displays of affection but right then, kissing Barry in the cool winter's night, he found that he didn't care so much about what anybody else thought.

Barry wrapped his hands around Len's waist, slipping them underneath his coat, and Len just _knew_ that he wasn't willing to give this up just yet. Eventually, the sound of the taxi pulling up at the curve drew them apart and Len looked over at Barry's big Bambi eyes, pupils blown wide with lust. Len felt the blood in his body rush south and he kissed Barry one last time before pulling away.

"Goodnight, Barry," he whispered and watched as his date got into the cab before it drove away.

Len took a deep breath to calm himself down before he climbed back onto his bike and fastened his helmet. He thought of the younger man. Barry was smart and sexy and kind. And Len didn't know if this was just a fling and he didn't know if he was just Barry's rebound. He didn't know if this was going anywhere or if it would just end in heartbreak. Being with him was risky to Len. But he thought that maybe Barry was worth that risk.


	8. Don't Hold My Heart Hostage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick heads up, Len's name isn't Snart in this fic. I was originally planning to keep it as Snart but as I continued adding more to his background with his adoptive family I realised that I didn't want him and Lisa to keep their names. So for the purpose of this fic they are Lisa and Leonard Neumann.

A few of days after their second date Barry woke up feeling as light as air. He still wasn't sure what had been wrong with Len while they'd been together at the coffee shop, but it must not have been anything major because Len had relaxed around Barry again while they were at the bar and now they were texting each other frequently once more. Barry smiled and stretched as he padded down the stairs to grab a quick breakfast. He and Joe were on the same shift today, both of them starting at 10:30 am, so he knew that Joe would have to leave soon but Barry was going to take a few extra minutes to grab some food and then he'd run over to Jitters for some coffee before his shift.

When he got downstairs he saw that Wally was sitting on the sofa and tying his trainers as he talked to Joe. Barry hadn't been able to stay for dinner with the West's last night because Cisco had called him in for Flash business so he hadn't realised Wally had spent the night. He'd have to talk to Joe about leaving some kind of message to let him know when Wally would be in the house so that he didn't accidentally expose himself as the Flash to the guy.

"Hey, Barry," Joe called out to him as he placed his empty coffee cup on the coffee table. "You still have plans tomorrow? We're going to have an old movie night," Joe announced and Barry felt himself pale so he covered it up by going into the fridge and pulling out food.

"I thought you were going to the movies," he called over to them.

"There's nothing on," Wally shrugged. "So, you wanna watch old movies with us?"

"Sorry, I've got a date," he explained. Though the plans for that date were going to have to change drastically now that he no longer had the house to himself. _No more candle-lit meal_ , he supposed and bit his lip in concentration as he tried to think up something equally as romantic.

"That Len guy again?" Joe asked as he followed him into the kitchen and Barry nodded. Joe didn't know much about Len yet. He knew that they'd met at the coffee shop but that was about _all_ he knew. Barry was by no means embarrassed by Len but he hadn't been eager to let Joe know that he was dating someone nineteen years older than him. He knew that his foster father would disapprove and he didn't want that added strain to their relationship. "I'd like to meet him sometime," Joe commented and Barry began to feel nervous but he nodded again. Logically he knew that the two would have to meet sooner or later… he'd just been hoping for it to be _later_.

"Sure thing," he smiled falsely and Joe patted him on the shoulder as he left the kitchen. Barry prepared himself a bacon sandwich as he heard Joe offer Wally a lift home. They both said goodbye to Barry as they left and he hurriedly ate his sandwich before he finished getting ready and ran to Jitters for his coffee.

As he joined the short queue he looked around the coffee shop and realised that Len wasn't working today, so he took out his phone to text him instead.

To: _**Len**_   
Sent: _**10:25am**_ **  
**Hey. Change of plans for tomorrow night? How about we go out to eat instead?****

He sent the message and waited. But he got his coffee before he got a reply. So he put the phone in his coat pocket and ran to work, momentarily forgetting about it. He had some samples to run and so he went straight to his lab, getting preoccupied with mixing the solutions required. Barry got his answers fairly quickly and printed them off to add to his now-finished report. He decided to not wait any longer and so he instantly went downstairs to the bullpen where he could hand over the report.

Barry looked directly at Joe and Eddie's desks as he walked into the room and noted that neither of them was there. He wasn't that surprised though, he'd seen on the news that there was a bank robbery happening downtown and there were hostages involved. Joe was a hostage negotiator and so it was likely that he and Eddie were the leads on the case, meaning they'd be down at CC Bank right now. The Flash wasn't going to be there though. He wanted to be but Joe had made him agree that, at least during his shifts, he would only start zipping off to take care of crimes if there was a meta involved. It was a fair enough request and so Barry had agreed, if only because he knew that if he didn't stop disappearing in the middle of his shifts then someone would eventually notice and he could get fired.

Barry checked his phone as he walked to the desk, still no reply from Len. He frowned and re-read the text he'd sent, He didn't _think_ there'd been anything stupid about it but it'd been over half an hour since he'd sent it and it was clearly marked as read. Barry tried to put it out of his mind… Len must just be busy… it didn't mean that he was ignoring Barry.

He was deep in thought as he stumbled closer to the desk and bumped into Patty, literally, who was walking towards him with her nose in a stack of papers. Barry's speed meant that he was able to catch his file the second that it'd left his hands and so nothing scattered across the floor. Patty's papers, on the other hand, went flying. Barry swore under his breath and quickly placed his report on Joe's desk before crouching down on the floor to help Patty pick up all of her papers; he sure hoped they didn't need to be in any specific order.

"I'm so sorry," Patty and Barry both apologised to each other at the same time and Barry laughed a little awkwardly.

"It was my fault, I should have been paying more attention to where I was going," Barry admitted and Patty shook her head.

"No, no. It was my fault…" She said. She continued to explain why she wasn't looking where she was walking but her words, and all the other noise from the police station, faded to silence in Barry's head as his eyes spotted a familiar name typed onto one of the papers Patty had been holding. _Leonard Neumann_. Barry picked it up slowly and his eyes briefly skipped over the other ten names on the paper but he didn't recognise any of them. There was no further information. Just eleven names on an, otherwise blank, piece of paper.

"What," Barry started to say but his throat was suddenly very dry. He swallowed thickly before starting again. "What is this?" He asked. Patty took the paper from him to look at it and shrugged casually.

"You know that Central City Bank is getting robbed?" She asked before answering and Barry nodded numbly, his heart was beginning to beat faster. She dropped her eyes back to the task at hand, picking up all the stray papers, as she explained. "Well, the footage from the cameras gets automatically uploaded to an online server. The robbers shut the camera off when they came in, obviously, but we were able to see who was _already_ in the bank. Or at least, see their faces. And obviously, we couldn't get the ID of everyone who was waiting in line… but the people who were with, or had just been with, a cashier had had their cards accessed and so we were able to get their names from the digital statements." Patty beamed proudly as she finished explaining and Barry just felt cold, as though all the blood had drained from his face.

"So, that's a list of… _hostages_?" He asked very slowly and Patty's smile dropped as she took in his severe tone and expression; she nodded.

"Like I said, it's not exhaustive. But… yeah."

[] [] []

Len was unlucky. He was unlucky in life and unlucky in love. It was actually more surprising that he'd managed to make it to the age of 45 _without_ having been held hostage in a bank. But, eventually, his luck caught up with him and here he was. He'd almost made it out too. If the gunmen had entered just a couple of seconds later then he would have been free of the bank, non-the-wiser that he'd been only moments away from having a gun pointed at his head.

As it was, he'd been walking towards the exit of the bank while on his phone and texting Barry back so he'd almost missed the large man wearing a black balaclava and holding a shotgun. It was only when the man spoke up and cocked the barrel of the gun that Len was forced to pay attention.

"Drop the phone," the man grunted as two other men entered and shouted for everyone to get on the ground. Len locked the phone and the man snatched it from his hands, dropping in onto the laminate floor and smashing the screen with the heel of his boot.

Half an hour later, Len found himself sitting on the floor of the bank with his hands secured by zip ties and a diabetic woman sitting next to him going into what appeared to be hypoglycaemic shock. She was mostly unresponsive, shaking lightly and there was a shine of sweat on her skin making her red hair stick to her pale face. The stress and panic from being held hostage had probably caused her blood sugar levels to drop… This wasn't good.

"Ma'am? Ma'am, what's your name?" He whispered for what seemed like the tenth time since the robbers had emptied her bag onto the floor to destroy her phone and collect her purse. That had been the moment that Len had seen her insulin pen roll across the floor. Not that insulin would help her with low blood sugar… she needed something to eat or she was going to go into a coma.

"Emma," the woman eventually replied after another moment of being unresponsive.

"Be quiet!" One of the gruff gunmen shouted over to them and Len glared back at the guy.

"She's ill. You need to let her go or she could die." Len knew he was making a big mistake as he said it but he couldn't stop himself. Rule number one of being a hostage: stay quiet. The first person to speak out was usually the first person to get killed when their plan starts to go south.

"Shut up or I'll make you," the man growled and this time Len listened.

[] [] []

Barry sat at his desk and… well… he moped. He should have kept his mouth closed but he'd been too surprised to think it through when Patty had asked him what was wrong. So he'd told her the truth, that Len's full name was Leonard Neumann, and she told the Captain who instantly banned Barry from getting involved with the case. Barry wished he'd kept his mouth shut. If he _had_ then he would be out there helping Len right now instead of stuck to his desk.

He itched to run. He itched to save his boyfriend and the other hostages. He itched to ring Joe and get an update on the situation… but he couldn't do any of those things. Captain Singh had left to join the police at the bank and he'd probably told Joe about Len by now, letting him know why Barry wasn't allowed to work the case.

He wondered how Joe was taking it.

Barry had kept Len a secret from Joe because he knew his foster father would be unhappy that Barry was dating a 45-year-old man who was working at a coffee shop. But now everything he'd kept was all going to be out in the open. Barry thought about asking Iris to be a character witness for Len… but she didn't really know that much about him which was disheartening. Joe was much more likely to trust her about Len being good for Barry if she actually _knew_ him. Barry started thinking about how to work around that as he stared at the wall in his lab. It was a good distraction and Barry was grateful to be able to worry for a few minutes about something other than how Len was in immediate danger.

But, eventually, his skin began to tingle with nerves and his stomach bubbled with anxiety once again. He leant over his desk to rest his head on the cool surface, taking slow and deep breaths. And that was how Patty found him moments later.

"Barry? Are you okay?" She asked and Barry's head shot up, a piece of paper clinging momentarily to his cheek before he pulled it off and placed it back on the desk.

"Fine," he lied, rubbing his cheek, and Patty nodded.

"Sorry, it was a stupid question. Of course, you're not okay…" she muttered to herself, ignoring Barry's answer. "You should go home." Barry's innate reaction was to shake his head and declare that he had work to do… but he managed to stop himself before he did any of that. "Singh asked me to check in on you and send you home if you weren't coping well," she explained. "And you're obviously not. So, you should go." Barry nodded instantly and stood up, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair as he did so.

"That's a great idea," he said breathlessly as he rushed, at human speed, past Patty and out of the lab.

[] [] []

Len was helpless to do anything but watch as the woman, Emma, swayed where she was sitting before slumping to the side to lean heavily against the wall.

"What's wrong with her?" One of the gunmen demanded, he was a different man than before, seemingly the leader.

"She's hypoglycaemic," Len said angrily.

"Well, that's just great." The man went off to find something for Emma to eat but, while the gunmen had been distracted with a negotiation call from the police officers outside, Len had already asked Patricia, one of the bank's employees, if there was any food. Patricia had whispered to him that they used to have a chocolate and biscuit drawer but management got rid of it in the summer when someone accidentally dropped a bar into one of the tills and the chocolate had melted all over the money. There was no food here for Emma to eat.

When the leader came back a few minutes later he was in the middle of a very quiet and tense conversation with one of his men.

"Okay," the man said eventually to the room. "She can leave. _Only_ her." The women stayed unresponsive and slumped over.

"She'll need help," Len spoke up again. "Let the boy take her out." He gestured to the teenager in the room who barely looked fifteen and the gunmen glared back at him for it. The room was silent for a minute before the leader turned to one of his men.

"Ring them back and let them know we're releasing two hostages." It was another few minutes before the men opened the bank door for the boy and Emma to leave. Len sat up a little straighter as he watched two of the men pace around the bank.

"Sir…" the subordinate said apprehensively, as he looked at his phone. "The news is reporting sightings of the Flash around the city. He might be coming here." The leader nodded as though he'd been expecting this – which, really, he'd be an idiot if he hadn't been.

"Backup plan. Put the money that we already have into three bags. We'll split up, each take a bag and make a run for it. He won't be able to catch all of us." The man nodded and went to get the other lackey from the vault and they fell into their orders. The two men came back in, to hand their leader a backpack leaving towards the vault again where they must have made another exit. The leader didn't move. He waited for his men to leave before pulling on the final backpack of money and walking over to Len, hauling him standing by his forearm. "You like playing hero? Fine. You've volunteered yourself to be my shield," the man said gruffly and pushed his gun against Len's lower back as he kept a tight grip on his forearm.

The man led him towards the vault at the back of the bank where there was indeed a hole in the floor. Len wasn't sure when or how they'd made that but he didn't ask as the gunman turned him around and took a knife out to cut the zip ties currently binding Len's hands.

"You try to make a run for it then I'll shoot you in your leg," the man warned. "And if you're too injured to move then I'll kill you down there and come back up for another shield." Len nodded in understanding. The man pushed him towards the hole and he climbed down into a, hopefully abandoned, subway track below. As the man climbed down the hole after him the gun was placed against Len's lower back once more and was used to urge Len forward.

It was dark down here but the way was partially lit by dull lights every few feet on the left wall. Len subtly inspected one as he passed by and realised they were battery operated nightlights attached to the grit-covered brick walls of the tunnel. He didn't say anything as they walked and, as much as he wanted to, he didn't make an attempt to escape.

Eventually, they found their way to an abandoned subway station and climbed up, exiting the station was easy and Len was guided towards the empty street. It was midday but the road they were on was mostly residential and winter made the wind harsh so there was no one mulling around. Len worried for a moment about what the gunman would do with him now, but then the guy tensed as he noticed the sound of a helicopter coming closer. Len looked upward at the cloudless sky, it was a bright day meaning that he couldn't tell the colour of the helicopter to identify it as police or news… either way, it was bad for the gunman which meant that it was bad for Len.

Neither man had any idea if the helicopter had spotted them yet but the gunman was staying very still as though he was trying to come up with a new plan. Suddenly, he was in motion again. He pushed Len forward quickly, trying to get out of sight. But, apparently, it _was_ too late because the Flash showed up at the end of the road only a moment later.

Len squinted at the hero for a second before realising that there was nothing wrong with his eyesight, the Flash was just moving so fast that his body and face became a blur. Interesting.

"Stay back!" The gunman warned as he pulled Len closer, the gun digging into his lower back painfully now. He winced. "If I shoot him then it's on you!" The man continued and Len wanted to roll his eyes. There was no way that the guy would just let him go if he got away from the Flash and the police. Len was dead the moment he'd been chosen as a human shield. He just hoped that the Flash realised that too. Len's best chance to survive was the Flash, though he loathed to admit it. He hated being weak like this and not being able to take care of a situation by himself.

"Let him go and I'll let _you_ go," the Flash spoke loudly, his voice vibrating against the walls of the houses surrounding them. Len knew 2 things in that moment. The Flash was going to play this safe, he wouldn't do anything drastic to save Len. He _couldn't_. He was a hero and he wouldn't risk a civilian getting shot because of his own actions. The other thing he knew was that the gunman was getting distracted by the Flash talking to him while he tried to come up with another plan of escape. The hand on Len's arm was digging into his skin less than it had been a minute ago and the gun was still pointed at his lower back, but the pressure of the cold metal was much lighter now too. The Flash continued to talk and the man continued to be distracted.

If the Flash wasn't going to rush the gunman then Len had to choose his second best option for escape. He took a deep breath and didn't think, he just _acted_. He spun around quickly and grabbed the shotgun that was aimed at his lower back. Thankfully this amateur had been oblivious to the fact that it was much easier to take a weapon from an assailant if it was pressed at your lower back than if it was pressed anywhere else on the body because it was level with your hands.

 _Un_ fortunately, the gunman had a tighter grip on the weapon than Len hoped. And although Len was able to take it from him… it wasn't before a shot was fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, cliffhanger.  
> When I first came up with the idea of this chapter I thought it was going to be awesome but now I just think it's… sloppy. Idk.  
> Anyway I'm not gonna stick to a specific day of the week to update anymore, I'm basically just gonna update whenever I feel like it. If I stay at the rate I'm writing at right now then I should be able to update two or even three times a week.
> 
> The more comments I get, the more inspired I'll be to write and the faster I'll be able to update *hint, hint* :)


	9. You're Worth My Troubles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing really happens in this chapter and yet it somehow turned out longer than any of my other chapters have been so far…

The second that Len moved to grab his attacker, Barry leapt into action. He was by Len's side within a blink of an eye and at the exact same moment that the gun went off, just in time to catch the stray bullet that was hurtling towards Len's abdomen. He pulled his hand, and the bullet, out of the way and Len continued his action smoothly, taking the handle of the gun and bringing it down on the gunman's head, knocking the guy out. Barry looked down at the bullet in his hand before he let it drop to the asphalt, trying to dislodge thoughts about how if he hadn't been fast enough then Len could have died. He looked up from the bullet and saw Len staring down at the gunman collapsed at their feet. He was shaking with excess adrenaline and Barry found that he really wanted to hug the older man.

"Are you okay?" He asked instead, making sure to keep vibrating his voice so that Len wouldn't recognise it. Barry could hear the sounds of sirens approaching and knew the police wouldn't be long, they were only a few roads away from the bank, after all, and they'd probably been on their way before the gun was fired – likely ever since the news helicopter above had reported a sighting of one of the robbers escaping with a hostage.

"I'm fine," Len grunted and squinted at Barry, probably a little disorientated by the blur of his body. Len looked away after two seconds and then handed Barry the gun before stepping back. The police were arriving then, and an ambulance, Barry decided it was best to just leave. So he ran, depositing the shotgun in Eddie's already gloved hands as the man stepped out of the car. He ran back to STAR Labs in a haze and was greeted by a smiling Cisco and a happy but more reserved Caitlin.

"Dude, I'm just gonna say what we're all thinking here," Cisco announced as he leaned back in his chair. "Your boyfriend is a _badass!"_ Barry just walked past him and collapsed into a chair, taking deep breaths to calm his anxiety. "Are you okay?" He asked and Barry slowly shook his head.

"Not really. Len… he could have died today. If I hadn't caught that bullet…"

"Barry…" Cisco started to say but stopped, unsure how to continue.

"But you _did_ catch that bullet. Len is safe now," Caitlin continued for him, stepping closer and placing her hand on Barry's shoulder. Barry pulled the hood off his suit and ran his fingers through his hair. "Maybe you should go back there and talk to him," she suggested and Barry nodded.

"Yeah… you're right."

"You should probably wait till the 'copter is gone, though," Cisco added as he indicated to one of the screens in the room where a news channel was showing live footage of the bank robber being arrested. Barry watched for a moment, surprised by how clear the picture was, considering how high up the camera was.

Cisco moved to grab Barry's normal clothes and dropped them on his lap. And so Barry went into a side room to get changed there, at normal human pace. When he returned back to the cortex to put the suit back on its stand, Cisco and Caitlin were both still watching the news. Cisco was lounging back in his chair and eating chips… Barry didn't know how he could look so relaxed while watching something that made Barry's stomach bubble with anxiety. He took a deep breath and fell into a seat beside his friend. Cisco tossed him a bag of chips which he ate sullenly. Once the exciting part was over and the perp was being driven to the precinct, the news switched to another story.

Barry gave it another moment or two as he listened to Cisco and Cait bicker about who would metaphorically win in a race, Barry or Quicksilver from Marvel comics. Caitlin was sticking up for Barry on principle whereas Cisco seemed to be arguing Quicksilver's point just to tease the speedster. Barry balled up his empty packet and tossed it as Cisco's head, watching the engineer squirm as he attempted, and failed, to dodge it.

After he thought enough time had passed for the helicopter to have left he decided to take Cait's advice. He said goodbye to his friends and ran towards the crime scene, stopping in the gap between two houses and emerging onto the road to find Len. As Barry approached he realised that Len was getting looked over by an EMT, but before he could reach him he felt a hand wrap around his arm and Joe was suddenly toeing him away.

Barry was expecting some rant about how Barry was keeping things from him again and he didn't appreciate it. But instead, Joe smiled softly at him.

"Before you talk to him, I just want to make sure _you're_ okay." Barry blinked at Joe.

"Me? Yeah, Joe, the bullet came nowhere near me," he responded quietly and Joe shook his head.

"I'm not talking about that… Barry, you just watched your boyfriend get held at gunpoint. Are you okay?" Barry understood a little better then: ever since he'd become the Flash he'd begun to have nightmares of his loved ones being in danger. And even though what happened to Len today wasn't Barry's fault, Joe was still worried about how he was coping with it.

"I'm okay," he answered honestly. He just needed to make sure that _Len_ was too.

"Good. We'll talk about how you're hiding things from me later," he finished in a slightly harder tone that let Barry know he wasn't off the hook for misleading Joe about who Len was. Barry nodded and then Joe patted his shoulder and walked away to talk to Eddie, who gave Barry a big grin and a thumbs up once Barry made eye contact.

He turned back to Len and saw him sitting on the back of the ambulance as the two EMT's talked to each other a few feet away. Barry walked over to him quickly and Len noticed him a moment later.

"Barry?" Len asked as he got close, a slight frown on his face. "What are you doing here?" Barry tried to smile convincingly as he took a seat next to Len.

"I was in the neighbourhood," he joked. "I saw what happened… how are you?"

"I'm fine," Len replied blandly as though he'd been repeating those two words a lot over the past five minutes and was fed up of doing so.

"Good, I was worried about you," Barry admitted and felt himself blush as Len turned to look at him more head-on.

"No need to worry about me, Kid. I'm tougher than I look."

"Okay," Barry smiled and took Len's hand in his. "I'll remember that for next time you get taken as a hostage in a bank robbery." Len laughed lightly and placed a chaste kiss to Barry's cheek. When he pulled back, Len was smiling openly as his eyes skirted over Barry's face. "What?" He asked self-consciously and Len shook his head gently as he answered.

"I'm just surprised you came," he admitted and Barry frowned.

"Why _wouldn't_ I come? You're my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" Len asked, sounding surprised and Barry's eyes widened. _Fuck_.

"Er… well, I mean… is it too soon to say that? I know we haven't talked about it yet and we've only been on two dates but I really like you and… and I'm going to stop talking before I dig myself into a hole." But Len was smiling still and the surprise was gone. Len leaned over and kissed Barry slowly on the lips, pulling Barry's bottom lip into his mouth and sucking on it lightly. Barry leant into the kiss, feeling himself blush and his heart race.

"Boyfriends sounds good," Len whispered against Barry's lips, both of their eyes still closed, before pushing closer and kissing Barry again. Barry tried to kiss back but the grin he was wearing was making that a little bit difficult. Len moved back after another second and they just smiled at each other for a moment. But soon Barry remembered where they were and why they were sitting on the back of an ambulance. His smile began to drop.

"I saw how you took the gun away from that guy," Barry said slowly and Len averted his gaze. "That was really dangerous… you could have gotten badly hurt, Len," Barry said, worried.

"It seemed like the right choice at the time," Len shrugged and Barry didn't want to leave it like that but he didn't want to chastise his boyfriend either, so he let it drop for now.

"It looked like you've done that kind of thing before," he said instead, remembering Len's confident and smooth movements. Len glanced back at Barry before turning to look out beyond the ambulance at the gathering emergency services.

"Me and Lisa… we didn't have an easy childhood," Len said quietly and Barry sat up a little bit straighter as he listened. "And after we got adopted, our parents signed us up to take some self-defence classes. It made me feel more in control so I go back every few years to make sure I don't forget anything." Barry swallowed thickly. He didn't know exactly what Len meant by _'not an easy childhood'_ but he had seen enough in his line of work to have a decent guess. He sensed that Len didn't really want to talk about it so he squeezed Len's hand lightly.

"I suppose you're a pro by now then," he said lightly and Len smiled at him.

"Not quite. But I know enough." Len moved his hand so that they could interlace their fingers together and it made Barry smile softly in return. "About our date," Len said and Barry lifted his eyes from their entwined hands back to Len's face. "My sister introduced me to a good Chinese place a few blocks from here that we could go to," he offered and Barry nodded his agreement.

"I like Chinese."

" _Everyone_ likes Chinese," Len said, rolling his eyes and smiling widely. Barry swatted him in the arm with his free hand and Len laughed. Barry leant across and kissed him again, licking into the older man's lips. They stayed like that for a moment before someone nearby cleared their throat pointedly and Barry jumped back in surprise. Thankfully, this time it wasn't Lisa. A female EMT stood in front of them with her arms crossed, looking exasperated.

"The detectives want to take your statement now," she informed Len who nodded and stood up, not letting go of Barry's hand. Barry stood up beside him and Len led him away from the ambulance as the EMT closed the doors. Barry looked towards Joe and Eddie, realising the two detectives were already heading in their direction.

"Erm, so…" Barry muttered. "My foster dad is one of the detectives here and his partner is Eddie, Iris' fiancé." Len looked at him with a raised eyebrow but nodded.

"Not really how I wanted to meet your family, but okay," Len whispered and Barry laughed a little nervously.

"Are you kidding? You took down one of his unsubs, Joe will love you." Barry squeezed Len's hand for a moment before releasing it. He wished he could be there while Joe and Eddie talked to Len because he wanted the first impression to go well. But he knew that he couldn't stay while Len gave a statement. Joe and Eddie arrived a moment later and introduced themselves to Len, shaking his hand, and Barry stepped back. "I'll get out of your way for a bit," he said awkwardly and Joe handed him the keys to his car. He smiled to the group before turning to leave.

He unlocked the car and sat inside for a moment, only just then realising how cold he was. He reached over to the driver's side to turn the car on and then put the heat on full as he waited for Len to be finished. A few minutes later he saw Lisa arrive. She waited outside her car for a couple of minutes for Len to finish and once Joe and Eddie began to move away from Len she rushed to him and hugged her brother. He watched for a moment before feeling awkward so he turned off the car and got out. He walked to Joe first to hand him back his keys and Eddie clapped him on his shoulder.

"You got a good one there," Eddie said with a smile.

"He's too impulsive," Joe grumbled but Eddie just laughed.

"Ignore him. He doesn't think anyone's good enough for his kids. He didn't like me at first either."

"Who says that I like you now?" Joe continued calmly and Eddie just grinned at him. "He's _okay_ ," Joe eventually conceded. "But I still want to meet him properly."

"Will do," Barry said with a smile and began to turn away to say goodbye to Len but Eddie called his name to stop him.

"And Barry… yes, he _did_ watch you leave," Barry blushed and nodded before ducking his head and walking back towards Len, hearing Eddie laugh.

"Hey, Lisa," Barry said quietly as he got closer to the siblings and Lisa turned to look at him, surprised.

"Barry, good to see you. What are you doing here?"

"I…" he started, realising he actually didn't have a good reason to be there since he'd only know Len for a few weeks at this point.

Flocking to his side after finding out he'd been in danger seemed like something that you'd do for someone you loved but not for someone you'd only been on two dates with. Maybe that's why Len had been so surprised that he'd shown up? Maybe he seemed overly emotionally invested? Barry suddenly felt self-conscious so he dodged the question instead.

"I was actually just leaving. I'll call you later, Len," he said and leant closer to kiss his boyfriend goodbye on the cheek.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Barry," Len drawled and Barry smiled as he left.

[] [] []

Len's eyes fell to Barry's ass as the younger man walked away and he smirked. His day had been horrible but if one good thing came out of it, it was finding out that Barry _did_ actually care about him. All things considered, Len actually felt happy. But then he turned back to his sister and saw her calculated stare… nothing good could come from that.

"He's a cop," she stated icily. Len sighed and shook his head, knowing exactly what was coming. He took a few steps towards Lisa's car and she followed.

"No."

"Oh really?" She said sardonically, motioning her hands towards the yellow tape guarded by police officers that were blocking the road. "Because this is a crime scene, in case you didn't realise. They have this place under lockdown right now. They almost didn't let _me_ past that tape so why would they let the guy you've been dating for all of a _week_ in here if he wasn't one of them?"

"He's not a cop, he's a CSI," Len said as they ducked under said yellow tape and continued walking towards Lisa's car.

"Oh, 'cause that makes all the difference," she snarked and Len rolled his eyes at her. But he completely understood her hesitance. Len didn't trust cops any more than she did. Lewis had been a cop, after all. And if one of them was willing to bend the law to suit themselves then why should he believe that the rest were any different?

Not to mention that Len knew for a _fact_ that Lewis had had several crooked cop friends even _after_ he'd returned from prison. They had hung around at Lewis' house, drinking beers, laughing together about God only knows what, and deliberately ignoring the way that Len always moved stiffly with pain. So, it was true that Len and Lisa had a deep mistrust of cops, and it may have soured Len's moment to find out that Barry was actually _related_ to one, but he knew Barry. Barry wasn't crooked. He was a good guy with a heart of gold and a smile that could brighten Len's day better than the sun could.

"He's a lab guy, Lise. He doesn't have a badge, he has a laminate. He doesn't own a gun, he spends most of his day in a lab running tests. He's not a cop," Len reiterated. Lisa stayed quiet while she unlocked the car and they got inside.

"I don't like it," she muttered.

"I know. I didn't at first either." It was true, the first time Barry had mentioned that he worked for the CCPD Len had frozen, feeling the sudden need to hang up the phone, jump on his bike, and ride until he ran out of petrol. But they'd been talking on the phone and so Barry hadn't known anything was wrong and kept talking.

The more Barry had talked about his day the more differences Len had found between the job of a CSI and the job of a cop. It had been enough to ease his nerves, which was enough to let him get to know Barry better. And really, Lewis and his friends may have been crooked cops but Barry was… pure, almost. He was a genuinely good and kind man with good morals and Len had realised that Lewis and Barry may have worked for the same employer, but that was where their similarities ended.

"I can't believe you're asking me to accept your cop boyfriend," Lisa grumbled.

"He's not a –"

"Yeah, yeah. He's not a cop," Lisa interrupted, still outwardly bothered by this new information but Len knew he could wear her down given enough time.

[] [] []

Barry and Len did talk later that night. Len had asked Lisa to stop by a phone store on the way back to their apartment and he managed to get all his contacts back from the cloud, texting them all his new number. Barry had called after that to iron out some of the details for their date and that was when Len had offered to pick Barry up on the back of his motorbike. Barry had seemed both excited and nervous at the prospect and so that was how Len showed up to Barry's doorstep to pick him up for their third date while wearing a black, muscle-hugging, turtleneck and slim grey jeans with his biker boots and black leather jacket.

His helmet was also black, which Lisa had rolled her eyes at once she'd first seen it as she'd muttered ' _of course, it's not like any other colours exist_ '. Len had taken that insult with him as he'd gone to buy a spare helmet last year, which was why he was currently also holding a dull-red helmet for Barry to wear.

When Barry's front door opened, though, Len was tense to find that it was Joe and _not_ Barry who was standing in the threshold.

"Sir," he greeted with a respectful nod and tried not to frown once he realised that the detective was actually probably only a few years older than him.

"Leonard," the man greeted as he opened the door to allow Len inside. "Barry will be down in just a moment." Len nodded his head and cast his eyes around the room; there was a younger man sitting on the sofa who Len assumed was detective West's youngest.

"Hey," the man jumped up and greeted Len with a handshake. "I'm Wally."

"Len," he replied and tried to smile but the detective's completely blank stare was unnerving him. Len wasn't much for small talk, especially not with the fathers of the men he was dating, but he attempted that too. "Barry's told me a lot about you," which was the truth, at least. Barry loved to talk about his family, though the person who came up the most in those conversations was Iris… Len tried not to think about that right in that moment though. Wally, at least, seemed happy to hear this whereas Joe continued to look at Len expressionlessly.

Thankfully Barry arrived at the top of the stairs then to interrupt their awkward moment. Len smiled up at his date as he watched him rush down the stairs, almost tripping up over his own feet at one point.

"Hey," Barry greeted, automatically going into kiss Len chastely on the lips but looking a little embarrassed that he'd done so as he pulled back and noticed both detective West's and Wally's eyes on them. "So, this is Len," Barry said quickly. "We'd love to stay and chat but we've got to get going if we're going to make those dinner reservations," Barry excused them, hurrying them both out the door and away from his foster family.

Len smiled politely to them and told Wally that it was nice meeting him. But he followed Barry's lead and they exited the house quickly, even though Len _knew_ that Barry was lying: he was a little early, as always, and so they still had plenty of time to get to their meal.

"Sorry about Joe," Barry whispered after the front door had closed behind them and as they were walking towards Len's bike, but Len brushed it off. The detective had plenty of reasons to worry about his son dating someone so much older than him. He looked Barry over before handing him the red helmet and putting his black one on.

Barry was dressed in a grey shirt, the top two buttons were undone, with a blue sweater and a brown leather jacket. His jeans were slim fitting and deep blue, partially stone-washed. Len couldn't help paying a little extra attention to his date's body and Barry blushed for it, which Len adored.

"Come on," he said as he sat on his bike, urging Barry to slide in behind him. Barry paused for a moment before slipping onto the bike behind Len's body and wrapping his arms around Len's waist. "Hold on," he warned before starting the bike and riding away. Barry's arms wrapped a little tighter as they continued and Len wanted to reassure him that he would be okay but it was a little hard to do so with helmets on and wind wiping around them.

It didn't take long for Barry to relax, though, so Len wasn't too worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to update this so soon but I had a quick question to ask before I could write the next chapter: bottom Len or bottom Barry?
> 
> I'm always a fan of writing versatile but I've already decided that there's only actually going to be one more sex scene in this fic so let me know your thoughts on who should bottom (and if you can think of a reason why bottom Len is better than bottom Barry, or vice versa, then add that into your comment too)


	10. It's Cold Outside (But You're Warming Me Up)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, bottom Barry won in that poll by quite a bit. Though the arguments for bottom Len were very strong so I almost decided to go with that instead. However, a few people mentioned that Len is probably a little too self-conscious to bottom at this stage in their relationship because the 'rebound' issue hasn't been resolved yet. And I have to admit that that made a lot of sense, so for this reason I'm going with bottom Barry.
> 
> Warning: this chapter is basically just smut so if you don't like reading it then I would just skip over it all. Only one thing of significance is talked about it this chapter, but I'll go over that again in the next chapter so that those who chose not to read this won't miss out on any of the plot.

The restaurant was bright and busy, with friends, families, and couples talking loudly and happily. But after Len and Barry ordered they paid no attention to anyone else, focused entirely on each other and their own conversations. They talked about TV shows, films, music, friends, family… Len steered clear of any topic that would lead him to talking about his childhood but he enjoyed hearing Barry's stories, reaching across the table to take his boyfriend's hand in his own once Barry told him about his mother's murder. Understandably, the younger man didn't feel like talking much about it but Len didn't let go of his hand until he was forced to when their dessert came.

He contemplated telling Barry about the abuse he and Lisa had suffered at the hands of their father, but he decided against it. One heart-breaking childhood story was enough for one night. And anyway, he wasn't sure how Lisa would feel about Barry knowing just yet… she wasn't exactly his biggest fan right then and, after all, it was her story too. She deserved a say in who found out about it. Len made a mental note to talk about it with her when they next saw each other because he knew that he couldn't keep this secret from Barry forever.

They spent the entire meal talking easily with one another and so when they were finished they decided to go for a hand-held walk around the city. Len realised that he had more fun with Barry than he'd had on any of his other dates for a _long_ time… he wasn't exactly sure why that was. But then he looked at his boyfriend and saw Barry waving his free hand emotively as he spoke, a grin plastered on his face as he shared a story about his dorms back when he'd been at university.

Len enjoyed watching the man speak. He wore all of his emotions on his sleeve which was so different than the closed-off people he was used to. It was refreshing. Normally he'd be questioning what Barry could possibly see in him… but somehow, with Barry's hand in his own, he didn't seem so self-conscious of his flaws.

Winter was drawing nearer every day and the nights were getting darker and colder, yet Barry's hand in his felt surprisingly warm to the touch. Len watched Barry's expressive face as the younger man talked and he smiled, feeling truly happy. He came to a stop at the end of the road and pulled Barry in closer. Barry went with him easily and leant into the kiss; his lips were slightly cold against Len's and they tasted of the chocolate mints they'd been given after their meal. Len wrapped his arms around Barry and right in that moment there was nowhere else he would rather be.

"You know…" Barry said as he pulled away from the kiss, a devilish smile on his face. "This _is_ our third date," he said suggestively.

"Yeah, well, both of our homes are a little full at the moment," Len murmured. "So, unless you want to get a hotel room for the night…" He shrugged and left the sentence hanging. Barry looked thoughtful and then slowly started to nod.

"I could go for a hotel room," he said seriously and well… Len _had_ been joking but he _really_ liked the idea of spending the night with Barry wrapped in his arms. He hadn't planned on having sex with Barry until after he knew where everything stood between them but, _hell_ , he could have died yesterday. He didn't want to deny himself the things that made him happy. Right now he could afford to live a little and save the relationship talk for another time. "I mean, we don't have to!" Barry was quick to say when Len didn't immediately respond. But Len just leant over and kissed Barry's words away.

"I'd love to spend the night with you, Barry Allen." Barry grinned as Len spoke and he spent the rest of the walk back to the restaurant, where Len had parked his motorbike, on his phone trying to find a hotel for them. Once he found one he gave Len the address and Len quickly looked over the route before handing the phone back to Barry along with the red helmet. He placed his own helmet on and sat on his bike. Barry hopped on behind him, wrapping his arms tight around Len's waist instantly.

Len drove them quickly to the hotel that Barry had found for them on the outskirts of Central and they held hands as Len booked them a room, insisting on paying for it. It all happened fairly quickly and soon they were opening their hotel room and looking around it awkwardly. It was a nice room with beige walls and cobalt coloured silk sheets. As Len's eyes skirted from the bed back to Barry he felt his stomach twist in nervous anticipation.

"I've never done anything like this before," Barry stated. "I mean… I don't mean that I've never done, you know… _that_ before. I've obviously done it. I just mean that I've never got a hotel room with someone just for the heck of it before," Barry rambled and Len smiled at the younger man, he started to walk forward as Barry continued to talk until he was in the younger man's personal space. "Have you ever done this before?" Barry finished, quietly, and Len shrugged.

"Once or twice," he answered. He cupped Barry's jaw and ran his thumb over the man's slightly parted lips. Barry's hands came up to Len's jacket and unzipped it, revealing the tight-fitted black turtleneck that he was wearing underneath. Len slipped his hand around the back of Barry's neck and brought their lips together. Barry wrapped his arms around Len's neck to bring them closer, their bodies aligning against each other perfectly.

Barry licked against Len's bottom lip and bit it gently before sucking it into his mouth. Len groaned and Barry leaned out of the kiss for a moment to get some air before he dove back in for more. His mouth still tasted like chocolate mints and Len chased that taste, brushing their tongues together delightedly. Len's hand ran down the back of Barry's neck, slipping under the collar of his brown leather jacket, and then along his shoulder. He brushed against the soft leather and pushed it off Barry's shoulder.

Barry quickly unwrapped his arms from around Len to help remove his jacket without breaking the kiss. But then before he threw the jacket onto the floor he paused. Barry pulled away from the kiss and Len attempted to chase his lips without opening his eyes, feeling Barry huff a laugh against his skin. Barry turned his head to the side before Len's lips met his again and so he opened his eyes and frowned at the younger man, worried about what was wrong.

But Barry just dug through his jacket pocket before coming out with his wallet. He then pulled out three sachets which Len was able to identify as lube. He felt himself smirk and quirked an eyebrow at Barry.

"Came prepared I see."

"I… well…" Barry spluttered, blushing a bright red. Len leant down and kissed at the younger man's jaw.

"Let me guess, you used to be a boy scout?" Len teased, muttering the words into Barry's skin and then biting lightly. He heard Barry's breathing stagger before he answered.

"I don't really think this is what the boy scouts are taught to prepare for," Barry muttered as Len continued to lick, kiss and bite at his neck and jaw. Len laughed at Barry's answer. His breath ghosted over the area he'd just been kissing, making Barry shiver. Len heard the thud of the brown leather jacket being dropped on the floor and then Barry turned back towards Len to capture his lips, kissing him hungrily.

Barry got a handful of Len's jacket and began to push Len backwards, towards the bed. He smiled into the kiss, loving as Barry started to take control. It wasn't like he hated taking lead but he always did _love_ to be manhandled. Within reason, obviously. Len thought back to the layout of the room and realised he was probably only a little over a step away from the back of his knees hitting the bed, so he stopped walking and pulled away from the kiss before he could fall back on it.

"Hell of a day to wear biker boots," Len grumbled and Barry frowned at him for a moment before looking down and noticing that Len was wearing 9-eyelet biker boots. Len checked behind himself to make sure the bed was there before sitting down to remove his boots. Barry stepped back to give him some room and Len apologised quietly. He made quick work of removing his boots but when he looked up he realised that Barry had made even _quicker_ work of removing his clothes. The slim fitting jeans, grey button-up and blue sweater were now thrown off to the side of the room as Barry stood there in only his briefs.

Len stared at the man, openly admiring his body. Len had expected the kid to have a bit of muscle but the well-defined six-pack was a surprise. A very welcome one. Len wanted to run his tongue over every dip in Barry's abs and it made his throat dry up as he imagined the sounds that Barry would make if he did so. Len knew that he'd be able to stare at his boyfriend forever, he was beautiful, but Barry climbed onto his lap and kissed him.

The younger man's fingers instantly found the hem of Len's shirt and tugged it up and over his head. Len felt his normal self-consciousness as Barry's fingers lightly skirted down Len's chest to his jeans, brushing over the scars but not seemingly realising they were they yet. Len pushed it out of his mind and kissed Barry as the younger man began to unbutton and unzip his jeans. Len helped his boyfriend to push his own jeans down past his thighs so that they fell to the floor, his dick brushing momentarily against Barry's through their briefs making them both gasp out a moan.

Barry placed his hands on Len's shoulders and pushed him gently so that he was lying back on the bed with Barry straddling him, both of them wearing only briefs. Len pulled himself, and in extension Barry, further up the bed so that he was lying on it more fully. Barry explored Len's mouth a little longer before sitting back on his knees and looking down at Len with a wide, devilish smile. His fingers played with the waistband of Len's briefs as Len's hands rested on his thighs in return.

Barry's eyes drifted from Len's face and started to explore his body and Len began to feel nervous. He didn't want his boyfriend to look too closely at the tattoos, he didn't want him to notice the scars that they were carefully hiding… he didn't want the questions or the pitying looks. Not today, anyway. Not right now.

So Len pulled Barry back down towards him and flipped their positions so now Len was lying on top of Barry. His boyfriend let out a surprised laugh and Len kissed those smiling lips. He then began to kiss his way down Barry's body, paying special attention to the areas that made the boy squirm: like his nipples and the dip in his throat. Len adored and delighted in every noise that he drew from Barry's trembling body.

" _Len_ ," Barry moaned quietly as Len dipped his tongue into his bellybutton. He looked up at the younger man's face but his eyes were closed and his head was tilted back. Len got to map and memorise every dip in Barry's abs with his tongue as he made his boyfriend come undone without ever going below his hips. But eventually, Barry was bucking uncontrollably and _pleading_ for more.

So Len pulled back Barry's boxers and took his long, thick, dick in hand. He was so hard and wet, leaking uncontrollably. Barry bucked and hummed as Len finally began to pay attention to his waiting cock. He started by thumbing at the slit and smearing Barry's precome along his length. He kissed and licked at the dip in Barry's hip as he teased his cock with his hands.

"Oh, I am _so_ not going to last," Barry muttered breathlessly but whimpered and begged for more as Len eased up a little bit.

In a similar way as Len did, Barry pulled Len back up before flipping them over. His pupils were so blown with lust that he didn't seem to even think about admiring Len's body. _Mission accomplished_ , Len thought to himself. As long as Barry didn't look too closely then they could avoid _that_ particular conversation for a little bit longer. Barry sat up and twisted in Len's lap so that he could remove Len's underwear, He then reached back for the sachets of lube that he'd placed on the foot of the bed.

"I wanna ride you," Barry said confidently and Len just nodded because yes, that was definitely something that he'd be interested in. Barry used his teeth to tear into the packet and then poured the lube out and onto his fingers before reaching behind his body to open himself up. Len pushed himself up so that he was leaning back on his elbows, watching Barry lustfully.

Barry's forehead was scrunched up in concentration but his lips were slowly parting. His eyes eventually closed and his head fell forwards. Len watched in fascination as Barry shook and moaned, riding his own fingers like he would soon be riding Len's cock. His dick twitched and he wanted to take himself in hand as he waited, but he managed to resist the temptation. Instead, he sat up a little further and continued to kiss at Barry's chest and jugular. He ran his hands along Barry's torso as he did so and felt the younger man shiver, his breath catching. Barry's other hand wrapped around Len to pull him closer, encouraging him to continue. Len licked across Barry's collarbone before biting it softly and Barry moaned appreciatively.

"Your mouth is going to kill me," Barry muttered breathlessly, leaning into the kisses even more. Len huffed a laugh against his boyfriend's skin. Barry shivered violently all of a sudden and Len felt his dick jump, figuring Barry had just pushed in another finger or brushed them against his prostate. His body was filled with anticipation, aching to be inside Barry and knowing that soon he would be. "Condom?" Barry asked and Len moved so that he could lean over the side of the bed and retrieve his wallet from his jeans.

He removed a condom from his zip compartment and Barry took it from him, his right hand coming back into view as he finished opening himself up. Barry pushed Len until his back was lying on the bed again and he went willingly with a smile on his face. Barry adjusted how he was sitting until he was straddling Len's lap just below his hips, their dicks lined up perfectly. Len couldn't help but buck his hips up, sliding his cock _oh so sweetly_ along Barry's. Barry made a noise that was somewhere between a moan and a laugh as he put his hands onto Len's stomach in an attempted to keep him still, the condom he was still holding in his left hand scratched against Len's skin.

"You gonna tell me to be patient?" Len smirked and Barry shrugged.

"I was thinking about it," he admitted but then slowly, purposefully, rolled his hips down against Len.

"You're such a tease," he complained half-heartedly. Barry's hands splayed along Len's stomach as he leant down for a kiss. The condom wrapper scratched for a moment against the edges of a particularly sensitive scar that stretched from the front of Len's stomach along to his right side in a diagonal. Len's stomach flinched away on instinct and Barry froze, unsure what he'd done.

"What's wrong?" he asked and Len shook his head and leant up to kiss his boyfriend. But Barry pulled away as his movement made the roughness of the scar tissue under the younger man's fingers feel more noticeable. Barry sat back and looked down with a frown at the long scar under his hand and Len leant back on his elbows.

Len had spent a lot of money getting his scars covered up and he went back to get them redone whenever he noticed they were fading, and so Barry had to trace it with his finger to know the full extent of it. It was the largest scar on Len's body and he found it rather ironic that Barry would find that one in particular while they were about to have sex, considering the reason why his father had given it to him…

"Where did you get this?" Barry asked, concerned. Len shrugged, not wanted to tell Barry that Lewis had attacked him with a broken beer bottle the first time that he'd seen Len making out with a guy. He didn't want to think about that right now. He didn't want to think about _anything_ right now other than Barry.

"A story for another time," he muttered and Barry eventually nodded so Len sat up and kissed him again, getting his mind back to the situation at hand. Soon Barry was kissing back just as eagerly as Len was. He pushed Len back down and quickly removed the condom from the wrapper before slowly sliding it down onto Len's cock. Len gripped Barry's hips tightly as he tried not to buck into his boyfriend's touch. Barry warmed up some lube in his hand before coating Len's cock in it. Len got the feeling Barry was teasing him again so he tugged impatiently at the younger man's hips until he laughed and obliged, crawling forward until his ass was lined up nicely with Len's twitching dick.

Barry took hold on Len's cock again with his right hand as his left hand gripped tightly at the headboard above them. He adjusted Len's cock until the head was brushing against Barry's lubed hole and Len's thumbs rubbed encouragingly against Barry's thighs. The younger man rocked against Len's dick for a moment before slowly sinking back onto it. Len gasped as the very tip of his cock pushed past Barry's tight ring of muscle, suddenly being encompassed by the tight, wet, heat of Barry's body. Len moaned lewdly, shamelessly, as Barry sunk just a little bit further before pausing. Barry was biting his lower lip and breathing heavily with his eyes fluttering closed.

"You doing okay there, Barry?" He asked softly and his boyfriend nodded, he opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something but then closed it again, unable to think of the right words. Barry stayed like that, hovering above Len with only the first inch or so of his cock inside him for another second before he lowered himself further, this time he just kept going, very slowly taking in every centimetre of Len's twitching dick. Barry paused again, rolling his hips very slightly as he tried to get used to the feeling of Len fully sheathed inside him. It was all Len could do to stay completely still, despite his urge to _move_.

He _ached_ to start fucking up into Barry but he instead tightened his grip on the younger man's thighs and waited. Barry eventually began to roll his hips a little harder. Soon he was lifting himself up and down on Len's dick enthusiastically, his head tilted up, one hand on Len's hip and the other still gripping the headboard tightly. Len moaned and began to fuck up into Barry, both of them moving in synchronisation with each other.

Len wasn't sure when his eyes had closed but they flickered open again after he felt Barry tighten around his cock and he knew that the younger man was getting closer to coming. He watched Barry in awe and heard himself muttering how beautiful the younger man was, truly believing it. Len wanted to kiss every inch of his skin and he knew that next time he would. But for now, he just bucked up into every one of Barry's downward thrusts. He skirted his right hand across Barry's left hip and inched it closer towards the younger man's dick, grasping him tightly. He ran his hand up and down Barry's cock and delighted in every shuddering moan the other man made as he inched closer and closer to his climax.

Barry came before Len did, throwing his head back towards the ceiling and moaning out Len's name like a prayer, but the way he tightened delectably around Len's cock brought him _so_ much closer to his own climax. Len thrust up into Barry a couple more times before coming into the condom. Both of them relaxed suddenly and Barry dropped down onto the bed. He looked as exhausted and spent as Len felt.

Len kept his right hand, which was now bathed in Barry's come, between them but he brought his left hand up to hold Barry and then turned them so they were lying on their sides facing each other.

"That was amazing," Barry murmured, a huge smile on his face, and Len grinned back at him in full agreement before forcing himself to get up to deal with the mess they'd made. He removed the condom and threw it into a bin in the bathroom before wetting a towel to clean himself and Barry up. When he came back into the bedroom Barry took the towel eagerly from Len's hands and pulled the older man down so he was lying back on the bed alongside Barry again.

"You're something else, kid," Len heard himself say and saw Barry blush at the compliment as he used the damp towel to clean Len's stomach. When they were all clean Barry threw the towel off to the side and pulled the blanket up around them. Len opened his arms so that Barry could snuggle into his hold, kissing Len's neck and shoulder sloppily. Len used the light switch above his head to turn off the light (perks of being in a hotel) and ran his other hand along Barry's arm and lower back as they slowly drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely not the best smut I've ever written but not bad for someone who's grey-ace and never even so much as kissed a guy.  
> So, if you've read and liked this chapter then let me know. Or if you thought that it could be improved in some way then I'd appreciate your thoughts on that too because I'd love to get better :)


	11. So Much More Than You Know

Len woke up with Barry tucked under his arm and he didn't even try to deny himself the smile that easily took over his lips. He watched Barry sleep for a while, stroking his hand up and down the small of Barry's back. Barry snuggled closer to Len's neck, his breathing deep and heart rate slow. Definitely still asleep.

Len couldn't decide whether he should stay in bed and wait for Barry to wake up or if he should go out and bring them both back some breakfast. Unfortunately, a moment later their quiet morning was interrupted by shouting and car horns right outside the hotel window. Barry groaned and snuggled deeper into Len's arms before he became aware of what he was doing. Len knew the exact moment that Barry was fully awake because the younger man froze and suddenly held his breath, which Len knew because up until this point he'd felt Barry's breath ghosting across his neck.

Len laughed softly and held Barry a little tighter to let the younger man know that he was perfectly happy to be used as a pillow.

"Good morning, Barry," Len said so quietly that it was basically a whisper. He momentarily felt Barry's smile against his skin before the younger man moved back so that they could see each other better.

"Morning," Barry replied and placed a kiss on Len's jaw, not quite able to reach his lips from how they were lying. Barry ran his hand up and down Len's torso as he continued to hold the younger man. Len tried not to tense too much when Barry dropped his eyes to Len's chest, a frown forming on his lips.

Len knew that Barry was beginning to realise that the scar he'd found on Len's stomach last night, the one that he'd asked about but that Len had brushed away with an ' _a story for another time_ ', was one of _many_ scars that littered Len's body. They were all strategically hidden with tattoos but covering them up didn't change their texture, the signature roughness of a scar was still there and clearly identifiable.

He could see Barry piecing it all together and figuring out that the reason why he had so many scars, the reason why he and Lisa had been taken away from their biological father, the reason why they'd taken self-defence classes… Barry was figuring out that they'd been abused. Len had known it would be just a matter of time before Barry knew about his past, but being prepared didn't stop his stomach from twisting as he waited for the look of pity to appear on his boyfriend's face.

But Barry didn't look at him with pity. Instead, he kissed the scar that ran down Len's sternum which was hidden by the tattoo of a thick metal chain, one of the links breaking as though it had been pulled too hard apart.

"Do you feel like talking about it?" Barry asked and after a moment Len shook his head.

"Not right now."

"Then I won't ask." Barry sat up. "How about taking a shower? Do you feel like doing that? Because I feel all gross and I have a feeling that a shower with you will be much better than a shower by myself." Len grinned to himself but didn't mention the potential innuendo behind Barry's words.

"A shower would be great," he agreed and let Barry pull him to his feet. The shower was plenty large enough for them both to stand in and they ended up making out as they washed themselves and each other. "Don't you have work today?" Len asked, pulling away from Barry reluctantly. Barry shrugged.

"I can be late," he muttered and Len laughed but turned off the water. They dried and got dressed slowly before checking out of the hotel and Len drove Barry back home on his bike. "I'll call you later," Barry said happily and gave Len back the red helmet which he stored away before taking off his black helmet to kiss Barry goodbye.

"I look forward to it," Len drawled. Barry kissed him for another moment before heading towards his house and Len lingered until after Barry had his key in the door before he put his helmet back on and rode away. Len parked his bike and then clambered up the steps to his apartment. He opened his door and walked into his kitchen to find Lisa sitting there, she didn't lift her head as he walked in.

"I'm going to guess the date went well," she muttered and he rolled his eyes at her. She didn't smile at him though, not like she would have done before she'd found out that Barry worked for the CCPD. She set her jaw and glared into her bowl of cereal.

"You know, you were the one who pushed me to make a move on him," he told her and Lisa glared at him instead.

" _Don't remind me_." Len dropped his phone and keys onto the side before going to the fridge and pouring himself a glass of milk, expecting Lisa's bad mood to continue on for the rest of the day. She shocked him, however, by talking again. "I guess you two are getting serious now then," she said and Len turned around to see her holding a receipt. He checked his pocket and realised that his receipt for the motel room he and Barry had spent the night in must have fallen out of his pocket as he'd taken out his phone. Len shrugged.

"Not really."

" _Right_. Because you'd stay the night in a hotel with just anyone," she muttered sarcastically.

"Maybe I stayed there alone to get away from you," he drawled and regretted it instantly. He and his sister may not be getting along very well at the moment but he didn't want her to think that she wasn't welcome to keep crashing at his apartment while she still needed to. He'd prefer her sleeping on his couch for the time being than if she went back to that filth of an ex-boyfriend. He opened his mouth to apologise but she just waved him off. Her voice was a little softer when she asked again.

"Len, you can tell me if this thing with you two is serious. You know that I only want what's best for you." Len took a mouthful of his drink and decided that he should just tell his sister the truth.

"It's not serious, Lisa. He's in love with someone else," he shrugged. Lisa started glaring again almost immediately.

" _What_?!" She demanded and Len sighed. He just wanted to brush his teeth, get changed and relax with a book for a while… he really didn't want to deal with this right now.

"Just drop it, Lise," he said before finishing his drink and leaving the kitchen.

[] [] []

Lisa was _not_ going to drop it. It was one thing for Len to be dating a cop but it was another thing to find out that Barry was _already_ hurting her brother. And the worst thing was that Len didn't even seem to see it. Once she heard the tap turn on she grabbed her phone and found the number for the CCPD reception.

"Good morning this is Central City Police Department. Mary speaking," said a perky voice on the other line. Lisa tried to keep her voice as polite as possible.

"Hello, could you direct me through to Barry Allen, please?"

"One moment," the women said and Lisa could hear the sound of her typing on a keyboard. "I'm sorry but he's not due in for another half an hour. Would you like to leave a message?"

"No, that's okay. Thank you." Lisa hung up the phone and smiled. It would take her about 20 minutes to get to the police station so she had plenty of time to get there. She grabbed her leather jacket and shouted to Len that she was heading out before exiting the apartment.

She got there and parked up a couple of minutes earlier than she expected so Lisa grabbed a coffee from the vendor in the park across the street and sat outside the police building to wait for Barry to show up for his shift.

The man in question stumbled happily into view a couple of minutes later, looking down at his shoulder bag as he adjusted the strap. Lisa stood up and walked to stand a few feet in front of the door.

"Barry," she said sweetly as he came closer and the man instantly lifted his head.

"Lisa, hey, what are you doing here?" He asked as he stopped beside her.

"I'll keep it quick because I know you have to get to work," she started before taking a step closer, into Barry's personal space, but keeping her voice light. "I know that you're in love with someone else and before you ask, yes, Len knows too. I don't want you hurting my brother. So if he is a rebound then you're going to break up with him. If he's not and you actually care about him then you're going to tell him." Lisa kept her voice sweet but she saw Barry leaning away from her as though he wanted to take a step back. "I'll give you two days to decide so choose wisely because if you hurt Len then I will castrate you." She smiled, took a sip of her coffee, and walked away. "Good talking to you, Barry," she called over her shoulder as she left.

[] [] []

By the time that Len had brushed his teeth and got changed into some fresh clothes, Lisa had already left the apartment. He didn't want to think too much into it, after all, it was the weekend and she was an adult who had spent the majority of her life living in Central so she accumulated many friends along the way. It shouldn't be a surprise to him that she would have plans… and yet most of the people she knew were too busy getting drunk or high on Friday nights to be conscious at 10 am Saturday.

Something wasn't adding up. But Len tried to push it out of his mind because he knew that the only way to survive temporarily living with his sister again was to not pry too much into her life. He just wished that she saw it his way too. Len knew that Lisa would eventually realise that Barry was a good guy, but he just wished that would happen sooner rather than later.

His suspicions grew when she returned to the apartment less than an hour later. Len frowned at her as she slumped onto the couch next to him and flicked on the TV.

"Where've you been?" He asked carefully.

"Out," she replied shortly and continued to flick uninterestedly through the channels. Len decided to let it drop, but not forget about it. For a moment he worried that her stress over the past few weeks had caused Lisa to go back to… _her old ways_. But as he looked closer he realised her pupils weren't dilated and she didn't smell like alcohol. He decided to keep an eye on her just in case.

Len didn't have anything he needed to do today so he chose to read his book for a little longer and then he'd go for a run. Lisa was apparently also happy to have a lazy Saturday too as she eventually settled on a film and kicked her feet onto Len's lap as she stretched across the sofa to watch it. Len looked up and realised that she had put _The Mummy_ on, it was one of Len's favourite films and so soon he got drawn away from his book and sucked into the movie. As the film drew closer to its end, though, Len's phone began to ring from where it still lay on the kitchen table and Len shooed Lisa's feet off his lap so that he could answer it. He noticed the caller ID and smiled.

"Barry, hey," he said. "When you said you'd ring me, I wasn't expecting it to be this soon," Len teased as he looked at the clock, it had just turned one o'clock so it was only a little over 3 hours since he'd dropped Barry off at his home.

"Yeah, well, I just got on my lunch break and I thought that I'd see if you wanted to go for coffee with me and my friends tonight…?" Barry explained and Len could practically hear the younger man's nervous smile. "I mean, you've met almost everyone else that I care about and they're feeling a little left out," he joked and Len smiled.

"Sure, Barry. I'd love to," Len answered and he could swear that he heard Barry breathe a sigh of relief. "What time?"

"Eight. At Jitters."

"Got it. I'll see you then." He hung up to let Barry get on with the rest of his lunch break and turned around to see Lisa standing in the kitchen doorway and looking his way.

"Barry?" She asked, but she seemed more curious than angry and so Len nodded. "What are the plans?"

"Coffee with friends," he shrugged and pocketed his phone. He noticed the small half-smile on her face and squinted his eyes at her… this morning she was angry with him for dating Barry and now she was smiling knowing they were going for coffee? Something was missing because this just didn't add up.

"With friends, huh? I guess you _are_ getting serious, after all," she muttered and he just rolled his eyes and walked past her. They returned to the sofa and watched the end of the film together.

At seven forty-five Len put on a warm coat and made his way to Jitters. It was only a few minutes' walk away and so he arrived early, surprised when he looked around the coffee shop to find Barry already sitting on a large table nursing a coffee cup. Barry looked up as he walked in and smiled at him and Len smiled back as he went to the counter. Audrey was working on both the till and the machines tonight, while the other employee on shift was wiping down tables, so there was no avoiding her questioning gaze.

"You meeting Barry?" She asked quietly and he nodded.

"Yeah, there aren't that many jobs where you end up going back to the place where you work on your nights off…" Len murmured and Audrey nodded understandingly at his quip but she continued to question him before she would make his order.

"And you're early, right? I mean, you're _always_ early." Len just nodded and hoped she would get to the point soon. "And yet somehow Barry is here before you and he is always _late_ …" she muttered and frowned at him. "What's going on?"

"You are way too invested in this relationship," he noted and Audrey stuck her tongue out at him before turning to make his drink. He tried not to worry at her words but they _did_ actually make sense… Hopefully, Barry was just nervous about introducing Len to his friends.

"Talking about _way too invested_ ," Audrey said over the sound of the machine. "How's Lisa?"

"Much less invested than you are," he muttered and Audrey smiled at him over her shoulder.

"Oh, I don't believe that for a second." Len found himself missing the time before Lisa had found out Barry worked for the CCPD… she may have been over-the-top enthusiastic about their relationship but at least she'd actually _liked_ Barry. Audrey placed the cup, very carefully, down on the counter and Len instantly noticed the heart she had drawn on the foam with "B+L" written in the centre.

"Was that necessary?" He drawled and rolled his eyes when Audrey pouted.

"That right there is a masterpiece. Don't dis my art!" She said extremely seriously and Len walked away to join Barry.

"Hey," he said, greeting the younger man with a kiss on the cheek. "You look nervous," he decided to mention and Barry shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I have to be honest… I had ulterior motives for asking you out tonight." Len took a seat and tried to not let Barry's anxiousness make him worry. He waited silently for his boyfriend to continue. "So, Lisa came by the precinct today," Barry started after he got his thoughts in order and Len wanted to sigh, hoping that she hadn't done anything that would hurt his and Barry's relationship. "She said… look, she said that she thought you were just my rebound and I just want to say that that is _not_ true. Yeah, I still have feelings for Iris but I have feelings for you too. Real feelings. I like you, Len, and I want to be with you," Barry finished, surprising Len. He stayed quiet for a moment but he reached across the table to cover Barry's hand in his own.

"I like you too, Barry."

"Oh, _thank God_!" Barry deflated in relief as though he'd been holding his breath as he'd waited for Len's response. Len took a sip of his coffee, actually feeling a little lighter now that he knew how Barry felt. He probably owed his sister a thank you, Len decided. A moment later the door to Jitters opened and Barry looked over there, waving at three people who entered; two of them Len recognised but the other one, a tall man with dark hair, he hadn't seen before. The tall man went to the counter as the other two walked towards their table. They both collapsed into the chairs to the right of Barry.

"Hey, Barry said you'd be joining us," the women said to Len and offered him her hand to shake. "I'm Caitlin."

"And I'm Cisco. Hey," the other man, with the long hair and the dopy grin, said.

"And that's my husband, Ronnie," Caitlin indicated to the tall man ordering drinks at the front counter.

"Barry's told me a lot about you all, it's lovely to meet you," Len replied smoothly.

"Oh, he _has_ , has he?" Cisco said slowly and then grinned at Len. "Okay, think fast: what is the best Stargate spin-off?"

"… SG1," Len answered after a moment.

" _No_ ," Caitlin complained at the same time Cisco laughed triumphantly.

"Oh yes! I think we're going to get along just fine," Cisco announced just as Ronnie walked up to the table with three coffee cups and took the seat next to Len and across from his wife. They talked happily for a little longer and Cisco kept attempting to get Len to take his side whenever he bickered with Caitlin, which Barry seemed to find _hilarious_. Caitlin drained her drink and smiled widely at Ronnie as she talked to the table.

"So, you know how Ronnie and I have been putting off our honeymoon for a while now. Well, we thought that everything was calming down a bit now and so last night we booked our flight," Caitlin turned to face Barry. "So, I guess since technically you're my boss I should tell you that I need to book some time off," Caitlin finished and Barry was quick to say she could have as much time as she wanted.

"You're their boss?" Len asked because he could have _sworn_ that Barry said both Cisco and Caitlin worked at STAR Labs and, last he knew, Barry worked for the CCPD.

"Er, yeah. Kind of. I technically own STAR Labs… it's a long story," Barry laughed nervously and Len let it drop.

"So, when are you off?" Cisco asked cheerfully.

"Next week. We got a really good last minute deal," Ronnie answered and Cisco gaped.

"But next week is the first week of December! You're going to be away for opening week at the ice rink?!" Cisco gasped. "You _know_ that that place is only actually good during the first week before the schools close for the holidays!"

"Sorry, Cisco. We'll have to miss out on it this year." Len thought that her choice of words sounded sarcastic but her tone of voice was genuine and sincere.

"You guys ice skate?" He asked, remembering fondly the first winter that Central City had put in that ice rink. He'd been twenty at the time and Lisa had been eleven; she'd begged him to take her ice skating and once he had she'd fallen in love with the sport. She'd been a natural, too, unlike Len. Despite how bad he was, in the beginning, it had made his sister happy and so he kept returning with her week after week for years, even after she got a coach and joined a team. Lisa just _loved_ the ice rink and she loved practising her figure skating with Len. Now, though, the ice rink was only open for the public to use during December and January… he thought about how that would have killed Lisa when she was younger.

" _Oh_ , yeah," Cisco responded. "We skate." Barry snorted into his mug and Cisco shrugged, deflating a little. "I mean, we don't skate _well_. But we skate."

"Do you?" Barry asked Len suddenly.

"I used to. I was okay. It was my sister, Lisa, who was the real star," he admitted. "She went to the Olympics with it." Everyone at the table gawked for a moment.

" _Lisa_ is an Olympic figure skater?" Barry asked, incredulously, and Len wondered just how harsh she had been when she had confronted the younger man about his feelings for Iris.

"She used to be," he shrugged. But then she'd started dating her coach, Roscoe Dillon, and confided in him about her childhood. Roscoe had eventually released her story to the press in some twisted attempt to get her loved by the nation. But they hadn't loved her, they'd pitied her. Everyone treated her like she was going to break and she couldn't take it anymore so eventually she did. She quit skating, started drinking, and that was the end of that. Len wondered how Lisa could take Roscoe back after what he'd done to her, but somehow she just kept going back to him. Len just hoped that now he was back here in Central with her that she would be able to break that pattern for good.

Len wondered how he was even going to _start_ to explain all of this to the four other people at the table as he noticed them all looking intrigued to find out more. Thankfully, though, that was when his phone began to ring.

"I should take that," Len apologised to the table and stood up. "Hello?" He answered as he walked towards the doors.

"Yes, hello? Is this Leonard Neumann?" An unfamiliar female voice asked on the other line.

"It is."

"Mr Neumann, my name is Joanne and I'm a receptionist at Central City Hospital. I'm ringing because you are written down as Lisa Neumann's Next of Kin." Len's entire body felt cold as he listened to the women's polite voice.

"Is…" he cleared his throat to try to move the lump in it, unsuccessfully. "Is she okay?" he asked despite knowing that they wouldn't be calling if she was. His mind suddenly ran through all the possible reasons Lisa could be in the hospital and he felt his legs go weak underneath him.

"I'm sorry to say that Lisa was stabbed and is currently in surgery."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, so much happened in this chapter… Barry finding out Len was abused, Lisa being protective of her big bro, Barry sorting out the 'rebound' issue, Ronnie is back (up until this chapter I still wasn't yet sure if he died in the singularity or not. But I thought it just wasn't fair to have Eddie alive and not Ronnie), Audrey the aromantic barista is also back (she's an OC so I accidently forgot about her after chapter 4…), a bit more backstory, and then Lisa getting attacked.
> 
> I'm playing it a bit fast and loose with Lisa's back story at the moment. It's not quite canon to the show or to the comics but it incorporates storylines from both.


	12. Someone to Numb the Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a trigger warning for this chapter: graphic mentions of violence. More information in the end authors note.

Lisa stared blankly at the TV as she watched some talk show host drone on and on. She supposed that the show was supposed to be funny but she didn't feel like laughing. In her head she kept going back to the moment she'd felt the knife shred through her skin. Her attacker had worn a black hoodie and a scarf to cover the majority of his face, so she hadn't got a good look at him. And he didn't speak, either; he'd been eerily silent as he dragged her out of the street and into the dark alleyway.

She'd been caught by surprise, having not even seen him lurking there, and then he'd instantly slammed her head into the wall which threw her off balance. The rest of the details were a little hazy, the result of her concussion, but she remembered seeing the knife and trying to run away. She remembered the feeling of it plunged into her stomach and how it burned, but she couldn't quite tell if it was a cold burn or a hot one. She couldn't remember screaming but she must have been because only a few seconds later there were arms around her that were leading her to safety, her attacker gone along with her bag.

A new episode of the show started, which broke her out of her memories, and she looked at the tiny clock in the corner of the TV screen. It had now passed 10 am and Lisa frowned. Len was always on time so, as 10:02 popped up and he still hadn't arrived, she began to worry.

The police had told her that it was likely a random mugging but that just didn't seem right. It felt too personal to be random. Like he had been waiting for her. And if this man had been after _her_ then maybe he would go after _Len_ too… Lisa was scared, not just for her own life but for her family's too. And her nerves didn't settle until she heard the soft knock on the door to her room and turned to see Len standing there. She smiled at him and then looked at the TV. 10:04.

"You're late," she pointed out but Len only shrugged as he took a step into the room and Lisa saw Barry follow him inside.

"Hey, I bought you a card," Barry said and Lisa couldn't help but remember that the last time she had seen Barry, she had threatened to cut his balls off. From the nervous way that Barry was acting as he walked up to her bed and handed her the card, she was pretty sure that he was remembering that too. Inside the purple envelope was a generic get well soon card with flowers on the cover and a poem inside, but she was grateful for the thought.

"Thank you," she said quietly and placed the card on her bedside table. A sharp pain shot through her stomach as she settled back against the headboard and she swore under her breath as she gritted her teeth.

"You okay?" Len asked quietly with concern evident in his tone as he took a step forward and stood there uselessly, wishing that he could do something to help her.

"I'm fine," she lied and put on a brave smile which she knew that Len would see right through but hoped that he wouldn't. The truth was that she was sitting in a hospital bed with a stab wound and no painkillers because they went against her AA programme. After everything that she's been through, she wasn't about to jeopardise her ten years of sobriety now by accepting opiates… even if it meant she was forced to stay on bed rest in the hospital for longer than was normal.

Len and Barry both sat down by her bed and for a moment it was awkward but then Barry took notice of the pile of books on Lisa's bedside table, all of them well used having been read and reread many times, and he just started talking. It was more of a nervous babble than anything else but it was soothing in a way. Lisa and Len both fell into the conversation easily.

They talked effortlessly for a while but eventually Lisa's thoughts began to drift again. This time she wasn't remembering her attack; instead, she was worrying about the stitches on her forehead. She'd smiled a little too widely at one point in the conversation and it pulled at them, a painful reminder of their existence. Once she started thinking about them she couldn't stop and her eyes drifted to her reflection in the mirror on the far wall.

She looked tired and she had a large greenish/yellow bruise down one side of her face which extended past her hairline. And on the right side of her forehead, there were her stitches from where her head had been cut as it'd been smashed against a sharp edge on the brick wall. Lisa couldn't help but think how unattractive it looked... She reached up to touch gently at the stitches and Len frowned at her.

"Lise, what's wrong?"

"Nothing…" she replied instantly with a shrug. But when her brother continued to look at her with worry she sighed. "I was just thinking about how visible this scar is going to be," she admitted. Lisa felt shallow as she realised that, out of everything she _could_ be worrying about, it was her appearance that was currently taking precedence. The room was silent for a moment.

"You could always get a fringe…?" Barry suggested quietly and Lisa thought about it for a moment and nodded slowly. She'd never bothered to cover up her scars like Len did, probably because she had significantly less of them than her older brother, but maybe this time she would. Barry and Len then spent the remainder of the visiting hours helping Lisa find a new hairstyle that included a fringe which would suit her face; and by the end of it, she was much happier and hopeful about the future.

[] [] []

Once visiting hours were over Barry hugged Lisa goodbye, feeling only slightly awkward while doing so, and moved off to the side of the room so that Len could say goodbye to his sister. He tried not to worry about his boyfriend but he couldn't help it. It had been several days since Lisa was attacked and today was the first day Barry'd had a real conversation with him. And that was only because Barry had run over to Len's apartment to check on him under the pretence of dropping off a card for Len to give to Lisa; because for the last three days Len had rarely been taking his calls or answering his texts.

When he'd knocked on Len's apartment door his boyfriend had just been getting ready to visit his sister and the way he'd looked at him as Barry had said that he was dropping a card off for Lisa made Barry's heart skip, which was probably why he answered yes when Len invited him along. Lisa honestly scared him but Len's small smile convinced Barry that it'd be worth it and, actually, the day hadn't been too bad.

But once they said goodbye to Lisa and left her room, Len's face grew dark again. It was only a subtle change: a sadness around his eyes, a worried set to his lips… but it was enough to make Barry pause, pulling Len to a stop along with him.

"How are you?" He eventually asked and any emotion that Len had been showing slipped away instantly and his face turned expressionless.

"Peachy," Len replied but Barry didn't want to let it drop, honestly worried about how Len was coping. He looked around for a moment for somewhere more private to talk and noticed an empty room to their right which he pulled Len towards. Once they were in the room Barry shut the door behind them and turned back to face his boyfriend who raised one eyebrow in question, even as the rest of his face remained a blank mask.

"It's okay to _not_ be okay," Barry insisted, hoping to get his boyfriend to open up to him, but Len remained silent. "It's just… you haven't really been reachable for the past few days," he eventually said and Len put his hand on Barry's arm.

"I'm sorry about that… everything has just been a bit hectic…" Len said, his voice soft and sincere, yet his expression remained blank and Barry just _knew_ that his boyfriend was hiding something. "Come on, let's go," Len muttered and moved his hand past Barry to grab the door handle. Barry leant back against the door, determined to get his answers.

"Not yet. Don't shut me out, Len. I want you to talk to me."

"I'm not shutting you out, Barry."

"Yes, you are!" Barry insisted and surged forward a step, making Len take a step back. "I'm your boyfriend, you can tell me when something is bothering you."

"What's bothering me is that my sister is in the hospital!" Len said coldly and without raising his voice, which somehow made him seem angrier. But it just didn't make sense, Lisa only had a couple of hours each day that she was allowed visitors, so if that was all that was going on with Len then he wouldn't have been ignoring Barry's calls for the past three days. There _had_ to be something else. Barry said as much and Len's jaw tensed. "I said I was sorry about that."

Barry wasn't sure how they'd managed to go from holding each other's hands and talking happily with each other to arguing so quickly. He wanted to stop, but all of his worrying and frustration from the past few days was boiling up and suddenly he just couldn't walk away.

"Nothing else is happening, Barry. I'm telling you the truth."

"Is that so?" Barry muttered, stepping so close to Len that he could feel the heat of his body. Len's eyes flicked momentarily from Barry's eyes to his lips and suddenly the tension between them shifted. Barry's lips parted slightly as he took in a shaky breath, and then Len was kissing him. It wasn't like any kiss they'd shared before. It didn't start slow and build as their passion grew, and it _definitely_ wasn't chaste. It was a rough clash of teeth and tongue and it set Barry's body alight.

Barry returned the kisses with the same ferocity, kissing and biting and licking into Len's mouth and going happily as Len pushed him against the door behind him, the contrast of the rough kisses with Len's soft skin was driving Barry crazy.

Barry gasped again as he felt Len squeeze his ass playfully and Barry moaned, automatically grinding up as he could feel his dick growing harder inside its denim confinement. They broke their kiss and Barry rested his forehead on Len's shoulder as his boyfriend began to purposefully thrust up against Barry's hips, causing beautiful friction.

"You're so beautiful," Len praised, whispering the words as his lips brushed against Barry's ear. He continued to squeeze Barry's ass and grind against his hips. Every hitched breath brushed against Barry's skin and sent shivers down his spine.

"Speak for yourself," Barry laughed. Sometimes he couldn't believe that Len was actually his, that someone so beautiful and smart and funny actually wanted to date him, to touch him, to kiss him, to fuck him. Len's teeth scraped against his skin before sucking the lobe of Barry's ear in between his teeth and tugging at it gently. Barry turned his head to the side so his boyfriend had more access to his skin, but the second that Len let go Barry recaptured Len's lips once more. Len kneaded Barry's ass fervently as they rutted against each other, then slid his hands around Barry's waist teasingly and down his thighs.

Barry's nerves were on fire and just the slightest brush against his inner thigh made his entire body shiver and his dick jump. He bit playfully against Len's lip and delighted in hearing the other man's moan, feeling it vibrate through his chest. Len's fingers inched closer to Barry's dick and cupped him through his jeans.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," he muttered in surprise and Len smiled wickedly.

"I think that's the first time I've heard you swear," he muttered as Barry bucked forward in an attempt to get more friction. Len laughed softly and Barry could feel a blush spread across his entire body but in that moment he didn't care.

The other man began to rub Barry's hard cock through the denim; it was rough and just hanging on the edge between pleasure and pain, but Len never pressed hard enough for the material to scratch too harshly at Barry sensitive cock.

"Can I fuck you?" Len asked, his voice deeper than normal.

"Oh _God_ yes," Barry replied and nodded enthusiastically.

"You wouldn't happen to have any lube on you again?" Len asked as he stopped cupping Barry's dick and starting undoing the boy's jeans instead. Barry whimpered and shook his head. "The boy scouts would be ashamed," Len said seriously with a small smile on his face and Barry laughed, kissing him. "We'll just have to make do then," Len said as they pulled apart and that was the only warning he gave Barry before he slipped his hands down Barry's thighs, dipping his body just low enough so that he could reach behind Barry's knees and tug the younger man's legs from under him.

Barry barked a surprised laugh as Len guided Barry's legs to wrap around him; his arms instantly followed suit. As Len wrapped his own arms tightly around Barry's waist and stepped away from the door, Barry's mind suddenly jumped to the idea of Len holding him up against a wall as he fucked into him and his body felt weak at the thought; he'd never dated a guy who could carry him around like this before… Len didn't even seem to be breaking a sweat and that turned Barry on more than he ever thought it would.

Len turned and walked a few steps more into the room towards the bed, which he lay Barry down on, kissing him filthily as he did so. When he pulled away a second later it was to find the waist of Barry's jeans and remove them completely along with his shoes and briefs. He kissed Barry's inner thigh with a devilish smile on his face. Barry sat up and quickly, but not _too_ quickly, removed his jacket and shirt.

Len stared at him, taking in every inch of Barry's exposed skin, before he crawled over the younger man and kissed him deeply, roughly. Barry pawed at his clothes, not wanting to be the only one naked.

Len seemed to get Barry's message, or maybe he was just as eager, because he pulled away to help Barry lift his shirt over his head and throw it off to the side. The rest of his clothes were disposed of just as quickly and soon Len was pushing Barry back down onto the bed and kissing him fiercely. He loved the feeling of Len's body against his, skin against skin. Barry bucked up against Len and moaned as his erection slid against his boyfriend's.

Len whispered Barry's name like a prayer against his lips and broke away, sliding down the bed. Barry sat back on his elbows, opening his legs wider as Len settled between them. He licked his bottom lip before sucking it in between his teeth as he watched Len settle himself so his face was only inches away from Barry's weeping cock.

"You ready?" He asked Barry and the younger man nodded enthusiastically, feeling a little self-conscious in the way he was splayed across the bed but entirely eager for Len to continue.

Barry dropped his shoulders back onto the bed so that Len had better access to him; but unfortunately, that meant that he could no longer watch his boyfriend. He expected Len to start opening him up with spit-slick fingers and so he was surprised when he felt Len's tongue pressing against his hole. Barry moaned loudly but then the pressure was gone.

"Shhhh," Len whispered. "We wouldn't want anyone hearing you and bursting through that door now, would we?" Somehow, with Len's skin on his, he'd managed to forget that they were still in the hospital. Barry knew that the right thing to do, the _legal_ thing to do, would be to shut this down before it went any further.

But he didn't want to.

The thrill of possibly being caught sent a shiver down Barry's spine and made both his heart rate and breathing quicken excitedly. He felt a jubilant laugh emerge in his chest and it briefly passed his lips. Len kissed at his inner thigh and then lowered his tongue back to Barry's rim. He didn't push in yet though, he just stayed there, playing with the tight ring of muscle to tease the younger man.

Barry shoved his hips down slightly to encourage him to continue and he heard Len's soft laugh, feeling his hot breath ghosting over Barry's wet hole. Barry whimpered as Len's tongue licked against his sensitive rim, and after a few seconds Len gave in.

He pushed his tongue past the tight ring of muscle, making Barry gasp. Len began to fuck his tongue in and out of Barry's hole as he started eating him out. It was just a tease really, though; Barry wanted more. He _needed_ more. Len's tongue provided just enough pressure to feel amazing but the sensations got even better after a couple of moments when Len's tongue was joined with his finger pushing against Barry's rim too.

Barry sat back and relaxed as Len pushed it inside him, biting on his bottom lip to keep his moan inside as he was conscious of the fact that someone could walk in on them at any moment. Before he knew it, Len had two fingers inside him and was scissoring Barry open. He pushed in another finger and Barry let out a pleased moan as Len continued to fuck him with his fingers and tongue.

Len's fingers brushed against Barry's prostate which caused the younger man to moan and just barely resisted pushing his hips down against Len's mouth. Barry bit harder on his lip and grasped tightly against the sheets underneath him as he felt the speed force inside of him trying to come to the surface. Len withdrew his tongue from Barry's body as he continued to finger him open, brushing repeatedly against Barry's prostate. The wave of heat flowed through his muscles and they felt weak under him as he clung desperately to his solid form, not wanting to start vibrating.

"I'm ready," Barry insisted as he pushed down against Len's hand. Len slowly removed his fingers from Barry's hole and Barry looked down at him to see his boyfriend slip on a condom and spread spit and precome over it. Barry reached down and grabbed Len's shoulder, tugging the older man up the bed so they could kiss. It was a filthy scrape of teeth and tongue and Barry knew that he could taste himself in Len's mouth, which just made him more turned on.

Len pushed Barry onto his back and crawled over him, pulling the younger man's legs so that they wrapped around his waist and then Len continued to kiss him roughly and push him into the mattress as he used one of his hands to align his dick with Barry's lubed hole. Len began to push inside and they both had to break from the kiss as they gasped for breath. He felt every inch of Len's long, thick cock enter him and stretch him out. He shivered and clutched a little harder at Len's shoulder as his boyfriend dropped his forehead to Barry's chest.

Len didn't still once he was fully sheathed inside Barry; he continued to roll his hips, thrusting inside of Barry. The thrusts got harder and deeper but remained at a nice slow pace. Barry bucked against him and wrapped his legs tighter around Len's body to give a slightly better position. They moaned and shook together as Len drove into Barry rougher.

Len's dick thrust directly against Barry's prostate and Barry's mind went completely blank. He let out a surprised loud, lewd, moan and arched his backup at the same time that he dug his nails into Len's shoulder. The older man didn't seem bothered by that though, in fact, it seemed to encourage him further. He did, however, cover Barry's lips with his own to silence him.

"Shh," Len ordered. "Don't want anyone overhearing this." Barry's dick jumped against his stomach at the reminder of where they were.

"Oh, God. _Deeper_ ," Barry moaned quietly but encouragingly and Len's rhythm broke for a moment which caused Barry to groan out a complaint, biting his lip at the last moment as he remembered to keep quiet. Len laughed breathlessly and brushed a quick kiss on Barry's nose.

"Come here," he drawled and Barry eyes, which had been half closed, opened to see his boyfriend's devilish grin. Len stilled his thrusts and pulled out then sat back on his knees and pulled Barry up with him He kissed Barry and pulled him up off the bed, guiding him back until his hips hit a table. "Turn around," Len ordered and Barry nodded exuberantly as he began to understand what Len wanted.

He pulled away from Len's lips and turn around to bend over the chest of drawers that Len had guided him against. The drawers that he was leaning over were at the perfect height and Barry felt himself blush as he pushed his ass up in the air.

Len leaned over him and thrust his dick inside once more. Barry shoved back just as eagerly against Len's thrusts but they remained slow and precise. This new angle allowed Len to get even deeper than before and Barry couldn't help but mutter his boyfriend's name over and over again as Len pushed on Barry's back, encouraging him into a better position, and this time when Len found his prostate it was at an angle that sent electricity down Barry's spine.

Hopefully not literally, but he could never quite be sure of things like that ever since he got access to the speed force.

"So beautiful," Len drawled into Barry's ear and, wow, Barry would never have thought he'd have a kink for someone complimenting him as they fucked into him from behind so deep that his legs began to shake.

But here he was, his dick dripping with precome and his arms shaking under the effort to support his weight with goosebumps on his skin because of the contrast between Len's soft whispered words and his dick picking up speed as it fucked into him and took what it needed. Barry grabbed his twitching cock with his shaking fingers and began to chase his orgasm.

"No, not yet," Len growled into Barry's ear, with warm breath brushing over Barry's small hairs and making him shiver. "Don't touch yourself yet," Len demanded and Barry let go of himself, barely containing the loud whimper that wanted to pass his lips but remembering at the last second that they needed to remain quiet.

Len's dick inside of him continued to hit against his prostate again and again, sending sparks down his spine, and the room was filled with their combined breathless moans of ecstasy and the sounds that their slick bodies made as they drove against one another.

"I love your body. I love how my dick feels inside your tight, perfect body," Len whispered and punctuated the last three words with his thrusting hips. One hand finding its way into Barry's hair as he continued to take him roughly from behind.

"And I love how you feel inside of me," Barry responded. He could see Len's reflected image in the mirror in front of him: his skin was warm and glistening slightly with a thin layer of sweat, his face was lowered and covered in shadows, but what he could see of it looked completely blissed.

"Please," Barry begged for his release as his dick pulsed between his thighs, and after a second he saw Len nodding in the mirror's reflection. Barry instantly reached for his dick once more. He was so close. It didn't take long before his dick jumped against his stomach and he came as Len let out a particularly erotic groan behind him. He knew from his boyfriend's increasingly erratic thrusts that Len was close to coming too.

"Fuck," Len whispered and Barry continued to push back against Len's thrusts as his boyfriend chased his own orgasm. Len drove his pulsing cock into him one final time before coming buried deep in Barry's ass. Len kissed Barry wetly on the back of his neck, making him squirm as he found a ticklish area of his skin.

Len slowly pulled out of Barry and stepped away until the back of his legs hit the bed behind him and he collapsed down on it. Barry turned around and watched him; Len's eyes were closed and his breathing was heavy, sweat still clung to his skin and he looked completely wiped.

Barry wasn't quite as exhausted as his boyfriend, which he wasn't sure to count as a perk of being the Flash or a downside, but he couldn't think of anywhere that looked comfier than Len's arms in that moment so Barry followed suit and buried himself against Len's naked body. They stayed like that, peaceful, for a little longer until Len's breathing evened out. Then Len leant forward and kissed Barry. It lasted only a moment and Len brushed his fingers delicately along Barry's hairline.

"So… you're ticklish," he drawled and then his fingers dug into the same spot on the back of Barry's neck as earlier. Barry screamed, which he would definitely be embarrassed about later, and squirmed away from Len's touch. He pushed himself as far away from Len as possible and then realised he'd rolled to the very edge of the bed and had an 'oh shit' moment when he realised he was going to fall. But Len's arms wrapped around him at the last second and pulled him closer to the middle of the bed again.

Len was grinning down at him but then there was a noise right outside the door and both men froze. Seconds passed and nothing happened and so Barry relaxed once more, content that they weren't about to get caught naked in a hospital room. Barry kissed Len chastely on his lips before standing up and searching for his clothes to get dressed.

As he pulled on his briefs Barry felt a twinge inside of him and he couldn't keep his smile hidden, despite the fact that his cheeks were now aching from the strength of his grin. He looked over his shoulder to see that Len was still lying on the bed watching him and heat arose in Barry's cheeks at the attention. He looked away and cleared his throat.

"I'm working nights starting tomorrow," he told Len, "and they tend to drain me, so I won't be able to see you again until after Monday."

"It's okay, I understand," Len said and Barry heard him move off the bed and the rustle of clothes as he too began to get dressed. "I suppose your friend Cisco will be lonely without his two best friends…" Len remarked offhandedly and Barry frowned, he hadn't thought about that but it was true… Barry wouldn't be able to spend time with Cisco for the next five days and Cait had already left for her honeymoon with Ronnie early yesterday morning.

"Yeah…" Barry mumbled, staring down at his shirt in his hands and feeling terrible that he hadn't thought of that sooner.

" _Hey_ ," Len said softly and placed his hand on Barry's arm. "It was just a bad joke, he'll be fine without you for a few days." Len's smile was comforting. "And I'm sure that he has other friends at work than you and Caitlin." Barry shook his head slowly. He didn't really like talking about STAR Labs to people who didn't know his secret, it felt like he was just lying to them, but he didn't want to shut Len out either. Especially since that was the exact thing that he had been accusing Len of doing to him.

"It's actually only Cait and Cisco that work there," he said and Len didn't look very surprised: STAR Labs hadn't exactly got much good publicity as of late and no one wanted to stay with a sinking ship, after all. Len looked like he had a million questions to ask but he just lowered his eyes to his hand on Barry's arm instead and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"You could always meet him for coffee for half an hour every day," Len suggested and Barry agreed to think about it. They finished getting dressed in a hurry and snuck out of the room and down the corridor hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think calling the trigger warning 'graphic violence' was a little over the top because it's not really that graphic and it only last for a couple of lines, but I just thought I'd cover my bases. The violence occurs in the first section of this chapter when Lisa is remembering being attacked and stabbed. It only lasts for about two sentences and I didn't get too detailed about it. It should be easy enough to skip over (I am terrible at writing these warnings…)
> 
> Okay, so, was this smut better or worse than the last one? Any thoughts on the rest of the chapter? Also, I just want to say sorry for such a long wait for this chapter, I've had it written for a while now but I couldn't bring myself to post it so I kept rewriting it instead :\ the next few chapters are written already though so updating will continue as normal from now on.


	13. Snippet 2

Barry decided to take Len's advice and spend more time with Cisco while Caitlin was on her honeymoon. He knew that for the most part, Cisco would be happy by himself. But Barry also knew that it would get boring real fast. So every day instead of going straight home to bed after he came off his shift in the morning, he instead met Cisco for some coffee at Jitters. It was barely ten past 6 when he got to the coffee shop and he was their first customer of the day.

"Barry? I didn't even think you knew what 6 am looked like…" Audrey muttered as she took his order of 2 large Flashes. Both drinks were for him, he'd probably chug the first on the way to a table, leaving the second one for him to nurse as he waited for Cisco to arrive.

"I've been working the night shift," Barry explained around a yawn and Audrey looked at him with sympathy. Today was Monday, and he'd just finished his last night shift for the month but he hadn't seen either Len or Audrey at Jitters all week.

"Are you sure you should be drinking coffee instead of, I don't know, going to sleep?" Barry shook his head and then managed to ask the question that he'd been wondering about all week but hadn't known anyone at Jitters well enough to ask.

"Do you know when Len is working next?" He asked. He'd texted Len the same question a few days ago but never got a reply and, honestly, Barry was worried about his boyfriend again.

"I'm pretty sure he has the rest of the week booked off. Something about having to care for Lisa," Audrey said and Barry thanked her but he couldn't help being slightly annoyed that Len hadn't told him that himself. He felt bad about that instantly though, knowing that his boyfriend was probably really busy and that it couldn't be easy to care for your sister who had just been stabbed… but Barry hadn't even been aware that she was out of the hospital yet.

Audrey gave him his drinks and, like he had the last few days, Barry chugged the first on the way to a table to wait for Cisco to show up. The man in question arrived barely a minute later and bought his own large coffee before joining Barry at the table.

"Good morning," Barry said as brightly as he could manage at 6 am after just finishing a twelve-hour shift, trying to push his worries and annoyance at Len out of his mind for a little while.

"Do you wish me a good morning," Cisco replied around a yawn, "or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?" _Same old Cisco,_ Barry thought.

How the other man even had the _energy_ to quote The Hobbit at this time in the morning was beyond Barry. But then again, Barry was never a morning person; he'd always preferred to draw out every last second he could of sleep and only get up at the last possible minute. That was why he was still late to work most mornings, despite now having superspeed.

"But honestly, can this even be called ' _morning'_?" Cisco asked as he looked drearily out the window at the pitch black sky outside, so maybe he wasn't quite a morning person either. They talked sleepily for the next ten minutes, catching each other up on their day and secretly talking about Barry's Flash duties in code so that, if they were overheard, no one else in the shop would understand what they were talking about. But then Barry's phone rang. He checked the caller ID before answering.

"Hey, Joe, what's up?" He asked and _hoped_ that he wasn't calling for the reason that Barry _thought_ he was calling.

"Hey, Bear," Joe started off slowly and Barry closed his eyes and sighed. "I know that you only just finished your shift but the crime scene I'm at could _really_ use your expertise," _which meant that it was a weird death_ , Barry figured. He sighed one more time before telling Joe he'd be right there; after all, he could do with the overtime.

[] [] []

Barry had explained that Joe needed his help and Cisco understood so he walked his friend out of Jitters, watching as he drained his second cup of coffee and binned them both.

"I could do with all the energy I can get," Barry joked and Cisco smiled but didn't have the heart to tell his friend that his super fast metabolism more than likely meant that caffeine wouldn't actually have an effect on his body, similarly to how alcohol didn't. Cisco and Caitlin had both been thinking this for a while now but neither of them thought it was worth it to burst Barry's placebo effect bubble. As long as the speedster still _thought_ that coffee would help then his body would react accordingly so there was nothing but negatives to telling him the truth, despite how much it felt like they were lying to him – which Cisco hated doing.

It was still too early for Cisco to want to go into work but he decided that there was no point hanging around Jitters, so he put his coffee into the cup holder of the van and drove to STAR Labs. It didn't take too long because there weren't many cars on the road at this hour. When he parked up, he held his to-go cup to his chest and let the heat from the coffee warm him in this cold morning air, hurrying from his van to the entrance.

He closed the door behind him and shook himself to disperse any of the cold still clinging to his body. He took his time walking to the cortex, normally he'd be humming or singing, but it was just _too early_ to do either.

When he got to the hallway leading to the cortex, he was surprised to see the light already on. Usually, the cleaners turned them off when they left… his feet slowed a little and his steps became softer, more careful as he crept forward. It wasn't until he rounded the corner and was standing in the entryway to the cortex that he realised he probably should have picked up a weapon on the way. As it was, all he had to defend himself with against the large man hunched over the computers was half a cup of lukewarm coffee.

For a moment, Cisco was utterly terrified. But then he began to recognise the slant to the man's shoulders and his shaved head.

"Len?" Cisco asked, confused. And that was his second mistake of the morning. Len spun around to face him and it wasn't a second later that he was aiming a gun at Cisco's head. Cisco dropped his coffee in surprise and looked at Barry's boyfriend with wide eyes as he slowly raised his empty hands into the air.

"You weren't supposed to be here, Cisco," Len muttered and Cisco's heart began to race with fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, cliff-hanger. Thoughts?  
> Sorry for the short chapter but now we're really starting to get into the story :)  
> Please leave a comment, I love reading them and they encourage me to keep writing


	14. Cold Hearted

"If this is because I called your sister hot, I am _deeply_ sorry," Cisco mumbled as he stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at his head.

"When did you meet Lisa?" Len asked quietly with a hard frown on his face and Cisco shook his head.

"I didn't, I just sort of googled her after you told us she was an Olympic skater, you know," Cisco hurried to say and then his eyes widened and he fought the urge to shake his hands in a 'forget that' action, resisting because he was worried Len might think he was going for a weapon or something and shoot him. "Not like I was stalking her or anything! I literally just googled her name and found her picture, nothing more." Oh _God_ , he was digging himself a bigger hole. Now he knew how Barry and Felicity felt... "And it was only the one time, I promise!"

" _Shut up_ , Cisco," Len demanded and the younger man winced.

"Oh _God_ , I'm gonna die." He wanted to run away but his legs just felt like jelly.

"You're not going to die," Len said slowly and Cisco managed to stop staring at the gun aimed at him long enough to flit his eyes over the man holding it. Len was looking to the left of Cisco's shoulder, eyes scrunched up and seemingly deep in thought. The room was silent and tense for a few seconds before the computer _bing-ed_. Len momentarily turned his head and tugged a flash drive out of the computer, obviously having transferred over a bunch of files.

Cisco stared at the drive and thought about the horrors that could be released if the wrong person got hold of some of the information cooked up inside STAR Labs computers. Len stared at Cisco for a moment and flicked his gun slightly.

"Walk," he said and Cisco nodded, backing out of the room. Len guided him to the side entrance of STAR Labs where there was a nondescript black car parked. "Get in," Cisco did as he was told and scurried into the passenger seat of the car. Len put the safety on the gun then. "Don't do anything stupid, Cisco. I don't want to have to shoot you," Len warned, firmly, and then closed the passenger door.

He moved confidently around the car and sat in the driver's seat, turning the car on and slowly pulling off without another word. There wasn't much traffic on the road at this time of the day and there wouldn't be for another hour or so. Len avoided the main roads, anyway, sticking to back roads and probably adding twenty minutes to their journey.

Len pulled up at the warehouse district and pulled Cisco out of the car with him, leading him into the right building by the scruff of his collar.

"Hey, this is a new jacket. Watch it," Cisco remarked and Len didn't reply. He dragged him into a large room where an older man was leaning against a table covered in blueprints.

"What's this?" The man asked irritably.

"They destroyed the cold gun," Len said stiffly and the man's frown deepened.

"Well, that's disappointing."

"I found the design on their computers," Len continued. He dropped Cisco's collar and walked forward, slamming the flash drive, loudly, on top of the table. "Signed with _Cisco's_ name." Len tilted his head back towards Cisco as he said his name and the older man's eyes fell on him once more. "He made it once, he can do it again."

"The cold gun…? Uh, yeah, no," Cisco stammered. "We destroyed that thing so that people like you couldn't get their hands on it. Tell me one good reason why I should make another."

"Because if you don't," Len pronounce, calmly. "I'll shoot you." Cisco's eyes drifted back to the gun in Len's hand and he slowly nodded.

"Yeah, that's a pretty good reason…"

[] [] []

The sun was just rising as Barry met Eddie and Joe outside of the crime scene. He was beyond tired and his eyes felt painful when he rubbed at them, but the look on Joe's face when he lifted up the crime scene tape for Barry to get through told him that whatever had happened here was more than just _strange_.

"What have we got?" He asked Joe and Eddie as they walked to the back of the waiting ambulance where a yellow body bag lay.

"Decapitation," Eddie said with a grimace.

"Yikes," Barry muttered and prepared himself as he pulled back the body bag to look inside.

"We got an ID a couple of minutes before you showed up. The victim was David Rutenburg, a security systems expert," Eddie continued.

"Patty did a preliminary before we got here, said that it didn't look like it was done by any weapon that she knew of," Joe stated and Barry shook his head.

"Yeah, she's right. Perforation around the neck is too jagged… it's almost like the head was blown off…"

"Like a metahuman who can… explode heads? Right?" Patty asked as she approached them. She sounded almost excited at the idea and it reminded Barry of how he, Cisco, and Caitlin _used_ to be when he first became the Flash. He thought over what she said for a moment and then frowned.

"Not necessarily…" Barry took out some of his equipment and ran a quick test on the victim's blood. "Traces of thermite," he said and Patty's eyes widened in understanding.

"Bomb residue?" She asked and Barry made an affirmative noise. "But then why wasn't the rest of the body blown apart?" She asked and Barry shrugged because he had no answer for that.

"It makes sense," Joe said slowly. "He had some dangerous known associates… George Harkness, Kyle Abbot, Lewis Snart, Drury Walker, Victor Gover…" Joe named a few from the file. "Not the kind of people whose bad side you want to be on."

"I guess you have a big list of suspects," Barry said around a yawn.

"Yeah, we'll get their files when we get back to the precinct. You should go get some rest," Eddie said slowly and Joe nodded his agreement.

"Yeah, thanks for your help, Bear." Barry nodded and packed his equipment away, happy that he'd given them something to work with but even happier that he could finally get some sleep.

[] [] []

Cisco was fiddling with two strips of metal a few hours later, attempting to solder them together, when Len settled a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. Cisco frowned up at him and he shrugged.

"You dropped yours earlier."

" _Right_ … when you pointed a gun at my head." Len didn't seem fazed by Cisco's words and fell back into a nearby chair, putting his feet on the table. He saw Len start to flick through the blueprints that had previously been on the table and frowned. He didn't know what they were up to but he felt _dirty_ being a part of it.

"Get back to work, Cisco," Len muttered.

"Does Barry know that you're a complete psychopath?" Cisco asked instead of obeying and Len tensed instantly. He sat up straight, pulling his legs from the table.

"Don't talk about Barry here, you got it," Len whispered.

"Why not? Are you feeling guilty that you kidnapped one of your boyfriend's best friends?"

"Just get back to work," he ordered and left the room. Cisco scoffed at him and went back to the cold gun; he was almost finished but he knew that he didn't want this gun getting into the wrong hands, it was too dangerous, and it was becoming more and more evident that _Len_ was the definition of 'the wrong hands'. He didn't know what he and the older guy had planned for this gun but he wanted to make sure that they couldn't use it against anyone. He stared down at the metal on the table… a little bit of editing and he could make it misfire, shape the charge so the substance that _did_ come out would freeze the shooter's hand instead of the target.

It wouldn't _kill_ Len, but he'd probably end up losing his hand. Cisco flicked his eyes to the closed door and nodded to himself. It might get him killed for his trouble, but at least Len wouldn't be able to hurt anyone.

It was another couple of hours before the changes were made to the gun and it was finished. Len came to check on him, bringing a Big Belly Burger bag in with him and dumping it onto Cisco's lap.

"It's done?" He asked and Cisco nodded.

"Can I go now?"

Len didn't answer. He picked up the cold gun and began to study it. Cisco started feeling sick then, as he watched Len's intense scrutiny of the gun; he picked the burger out of the bag and began to unravel it, trying not to look so nervous.

"I've been studying the design for this all morning," Len said icily and he dropped the gun back onto the table. "You think I wouldn't notice that you've messed with the firing pin? Fix it." Len went back to sitting beside the table and flicking through papers as Cisco hurried to finish his food before picking the gun back up.

He hated that his plan had failed but he knew that he couldn't risk messing with the cold gun again, so he spent the next hour taking it apart and putting it back together.

The older man, whose name Cisco still didn't know but he was bulky and scary and Cisco didn't doubt that he enjoyed killing people, poked his head in the door at one point, he came into the room and hovered momentarily over Cisco's shoulder.

"You gave him food?" The man asked, sounding a little surprised when he noticed the wrappers on the table.

"A hungry worker is an unhappy worker," Len remarked without lifting his head. The older man made a noise in the back of his throat and left the room, leaving the door open. It wasn't long later that the cold gun was finished. Len inspected it again like he had done previously, but this time Cisco knew that there was nothing wrong with it.

Len slipped a pair of goggles, which looked familiar, out of his pocket and put them on. He aimed the gun and shot at the chair he'd previously been lounging on and it was covered in ice immediately. He nodded to himself, pleased. When he took the goggles off Cisco recognised them as the ones he had specifically designed for the first cold gun.

"Where did you get those?" He asked as Len slipped them back into his pocket.

"I stole them from the lock-up in STAR Labs," Len said nonchalantly and Cisco glared at him.

"Barry would be _so proud_ ," he muttered.

"Who's Barry?" Asked the older man who had appeared in the doorway and, for a split second, Cisco could see fear splashed across Len's face before he was able to school his features. "You got yourself a new guy, Son?"

"Just a kid, really," Len snarked and turned to face the older man with a smirk on his face. "Barely 26. Good for a bit of fun every now and then." The older man laughed as he walked towards Len, it was a horrible noise that made Cisco's skin crawl.

"That's my boy," he said, almost affectionately. _Almost_. The guy went to slap Len on the shoulder, but Len dodged it. The older man frowned at Len for several tense seconds. "You happy with the gun?" Len nodded. "Good. Shoot him."

"Wait, what?!" Cisco shouted, standing up suddenly. "We had a deal!" The older man ignored him.

"I don't think we should kill him yet," Len said and the older man stared at him with an unhappy set to his face. "He could come in useful. We might need him to upgrade the gun."

"You don't think it'll kill the Flash?" The older man asked and suddenly Cisco's stomach bottomed out.

"Slow him down? Yes. Kill him?" Len paused. "I don't know. I've seen him fighting on the news, he seems to regenerate fast. If we can get a clean shot at his heart then yes. But getting that shot is going to be difficult." There was silence in the room for a moment before the older man turned to walk out the door.

"Fine. Tie him up. We'll deal with him when we get back." Len waited until after the older man had left the room before taking out the zip ties. He put a hand on Cisco's shoulder and forced him back into the seat.

"Don't talk about Barry again," Len whispered after he'd finished tying Cisco's legs to the chair and Cisco knew in that moment that the older man really was dangerous. He remembered the fear on Len's face… _Len loved Barry_ , Cisco realised, _he was trying to keep him safe_.

He just didn't know that the man he was trying to protect and the man he was trying to kill were the same person.

Len started to tie his hands behind his back then and Cisco knew that he was going to die in this chair and Barry was going to get shot by his own boyfriend with a gun that _Cisco_ had built. Because Len was a bad guy. He may not be a meta, but he was a murderer.

"Alright, _Captain Cold_ ," Cisco snarled, giving him a code name so that he didn't keep thinking of him as Barry's boyfriend. He was a bad guy. He was holding Cisco at gunpoint and so Cisco needed to dehumanise him in his mind.

"Captain Cold?" He asked without much interest.

"I give names to all the bad guys we come across." Cold stayed silent as he finished tightening the restraints on Cisco's hands, then he sat back on his heels.

"Can you get your hands out?"

"Nope," Cisco replied without trying. He wasn't going to _help_ him.

"Cisco, listen to me," he continued very quietly. "If you're still here when we get back then he's going to kill you. I need to know that you can get out of these." Cold placed an object carefully onto the table, not making any noise. Cisco studied it and realised it was a pocket knife.

He stared at it for a moment and then his eyes landed on the open doorway as he attempted to remove his hand from his restraints. It was a little bit of a struggle, but he got his hand most of the way out in only a few seconds. Cold put his hand over Cisco's wrists to stop him from struggling anymore, happy enough that he'd be able to get free and still look tied up if the older man came in to check.

"I'll knock a book over or something when we leave. Wait about 5 minutes after you hear it before taking the ties off." Cisco nodded and Cold stood up, about to leave the room.

"Wait," Cisco whispered and Cold turned back to look at him. "Don't… don't kill the Flash," was all he could say in warning. Cold turned away without answering and left the room, closing the door behind him as he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this chapter was one of the first scenes I ever wrote for this fanfic (if you hadn't guessed, I write things out of order a lot) so I hope you guys enjoyed it.  
> Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts because they always give me a boost of encouragement to keep writing :)


	15. Actions speak Louder than Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added Felicity in to this chapter but I'm sorry if she's a little OOC because I'm not used to writing her in a sombre mood (okay, so I don't think I've ever actually _written ___Felicity before because this is my first arrowverse fanfic. But I've written her in my head a hundred times. Honestly, if only there was a machine that could transfer my thoughts directly into a document because I write a new fanfic in my head every night before I fall asleep. I'd have hundreds of them uploaded on here by now…)

Barry woke up late that afternoon and thanked God for his blackout blinds, which made sure that none of the daytime sunlight had disturbed him. It always made him sad as he left the room without bothering to open the blinds because he knew that it was already dark out, but the long twelve hour night shifts were over now and he wouldn't have any more for at least a month.

Barry didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of the evening before he had to go to STAR Labs for Flash patrol. Well actually, that wasn't _quite_ true… he knew he was going to eat food. As if on cue, his stomach grumbled. A _lot_ of food. And now that he didn't have to worry about rushing off to work, he didn't have to eat at home by himself anymore.

Barry's mind immediately went to his boyfriend and he reached for his phone. Maybe, if he was lucky, Len would be available for a last minute date. Barry blushed as he remembered the last impromptu time they spent together… he definitely wouldn't mind a repeat of that. Maybe somewhere a little less public this time though… or maybe not.

Barry clicked on Len's number and waited as it rang. The call eventually went to voicemail and Barry's heart sank. It was starting to become ridiculous, how out of reach Len was. Barry just hoped that this was only because Len was so busy looking after Lisa and not because he was trying to avoid him…

No. They had been doing great. Len couldn't be trying to avoid Barry… could he?

Barry looked back down at his phone and called Iris instead.

[] [] []

After Barry finished having dinner with Iris, she went home to Eddie whereas Barry went to STAR Labs. As he pushed open the door and walked down the corridor he was surprised when he didn't hear music or the sounds from a TV echoing down the hall. It wasn't always the most alive building but Cisco said he liked to keep the place 'fun'.

"Cisco?" He called out when he turned towards the cortex and saw no one in sight. He stepped into the room and looked around, the lights were still on but the computers were off. He took another step and realised the floor felt sticky beneath his feet. There was dried coffee on the floor next to an empty to-go cup. It was only about a foot from the bin and so Barry had to assume that Cisco had attempted to throw it in and then missed.

He picked the cup up and then dropped it into the rubbish before continuing into the room. It was a little odd for Cisco to leave before Barry got there, but it happened occasionally. And maybe he'd felt bored being all alone at STAR Labs while Caitlin was on her honeymoon.

Barry moved to the computers and turned them on before logging into Cisco's crime detection software. He pulled out his phone, ready to call his friend, when the computers beeped. He pulled up the notification and saw that an alarm had been tripped in a vault across town.

Barry got the address and sped into his Flash suit before racing over to the building. There were two bodies lying on the ground as he arrived on the same floor as the vault. He rushed over and instantly checked them both for a pulse but found none. Both of them had been shot dead. Barry closed their eyes before moving forward.

In the next second, he was standing near the vault door. Another man was standing in the threshold and looking inside, probably at his partner. The man was tall with a shaved head and wearing a blue jumpsuit. He held a strange weapon that Barry's eyes zeroed in on immediately. But Barry's arrival didn't go unnoticed by the man, who spun around and lifted the gun at Barry's direction, pulling the trigger. The temperature in the room dropped suddenly as a bright substance was shot from the gun, travelling in Barry's direction.

Barry saw it happen in slow motion as he got ready to dive to the side and away from the substance. But then his eyes landed on the owner of the gun, his face visible to Barry for the first time. There were goggles over the man's eyes but Barry would be able to identify that face anywhere. Len. His breath caught in his throat suddenly and he was so shocked that he forgot to move out of the way of the blast.

The bright substance hit Barry on his shoulder and the power behind it sent him flying back, his body hitting the far wall behind him. It wasn't until he'd stopped moving that the cold set in, ice covering the shoulder of his suit and burning against his skin. He'd never experienced a cold burn before and it _hurt_. He looked up at Len and saw his boyfriend moving the gun to aim at Barry again and so he ran. He took cover behind a wall and stayed there.

He didn't know whether it was the cold or panic, but he couldn't catch his breath anymore; his chest hurt, his heart pounded against his ribs and his stomach felt sick because of it, and he couldn't bring himself to move. This couldn't be real… This had to be some kind of weird, fucked up, dream…

He could hear Len's voice shouting that they had to leave and another man answered him. He heard footsteps rushing down the corridor and leaving through one of the side hallways. Barry sat there shaking and trying desperately to catch his breath in the silent hallway; he stayed that way right up until he heard the noise of approaching police. Barry raised himself up on his shaking legs and ran out of there.

When he got back to STAR Labs, it was still empty. Barry pulled off his cowl and collapsed into one of the chairs. He ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes as he attempted to convince himself that it wasn't Len because it _had_ to be someone else… anyone else. The room was silent except the whir of computers and the occasional ding of Cisco's crime detection software.

" _Barry_?!" He heard someone shout from down the corridor and Barry's head shot up, the sudden movement causing a migraine to stir behind his eyes. Barry pressed the palm of his hands against his eyes in response to the pain and they came back damp. He'd been crying without realising it.

Someone shouted his name again and this time the person was close enough for Barry to hear their footsteps pounding against the solid floor as they ran towards the cortex. Barry recognised the voice as Cisco's and he worried that his friend might be running from someone so he pulled down his cowl and ran towards Cisco.

"Cisco, what happened? What's wrong?" He asked quickly as he saw the fear plastered over his friend's face, he looked down the corridor in case there was someone pursuing him but there was no one there. Cisco's expression instantly turned to relief and he hugged Barry.

"Oh, _thank God_ , you're alive!"

"What? Yeah, of course, I am. What's wrong?" Barry questioned.

"It's Len," Cisco said seriously and Barry felt himself pale. "He's… look, I don't really know how to say this and it's going to be hard for you to hear but I'm just gonna come out with it. Len is-"

"A criminal," Barry interrupted in a flat tone. Cisco closed his mouth and slowly nodded.

"You know?"

"Let's just say that the Flash had a run in with him tonight." Barry tried to hide the pain in his voice but he knew that he wasn't succeeding. "How did you find out?" He asked quietly even though he _really_ didn't want to know what his boyfriend could have done to his best friend. Cisco took a deep breath and explained everything that had happened since he'd left Barry at Jitters this morning: how he'd interrupted Len's attempt to steal from STAR Labs and so he'd been kidnapped and forced to make a weapon at gunpoint.

"I don't even know how he found out about the cold gun…" Cisco ranted. "We got it back right away when that guy stole it last year, and we destroyed it right then and there. As much as I hate to admit it, Wells… Eobard… whatever… was right: I should have never made that gun in the first place. We wouldn't be in this situation now if I hadn't created it."

"You can't blame yourself for that, Cisco," Barry was quick to say because if anyone should be blaming themselves it was Barry. He'd trusted Len, he'd introduced him to his friends… maybe if he hadn't done either then this wouldn't have happened. They walked back to the cortex together and Cisco shut down the computers, ignoring the notifications on his crime detection software.

"How are you holding up?" Cisco asked quietly and Barry nodded.

"Considering my boyfriend killed two guys, robbed a vault and shot at me… I've had better days." Barry huffed a humourless laugh.

"Barry… I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, Cisco."

They called it a night after that, both of them too mentally exhausted from the day's events to feel like patrolling. Cisco offered Barry a ride home but he declined; he needed to _run_. Running always cleared his head and Barry really needed that right now.

"Do we tell Caitlin?" Cisco asked before they left and Barry shook his head.

"I don't want her to worry. We can tell her when they get back from their honeymoon."

Cisco agreed and they went their separate ways. Barry took a long way home. And by that, he meant that he ran far, far, out of the city. Barry ran and ran and just kept running. The cool air whipping against his skin counteracted the excess heat that his body was generating nicely. The breeze and his deep breaths relieved some of the anxiety that was bubbling under his skin and the concentration he had to put into running at such high speeds did the rest.

Soon his mind was able to temporarily forget about the look on Len's face as he shot at Barry, and Barry revelled in the feeling of being able to breathe properly again without the crushing feeling in his chest. But it was only another few seconds before he remembered why he was, _literally_ , running away from his problems. The memories from tonight flashed back in his head with a vengeance and Barry felt unsteady as he skidded to a stop. He was on an empty road in a suburban neighbourhood and he fell to the floor, leaning back against the building behind him.

He pictured the two guards lying dead and riddled with bullet holes. Len had killed them. Or his partner had and Len hadn't stopped him. Either way, Barry felt sick. He took a deep breath and tried to emotionally distance himself from the case, but it was hard. He knew what he'd do if this was any other criminal though: his next step would to be to look at their records. Normally Cisco would get access to these for him, but Cisco would be at home by now getting a well-deserved rest and Barry suddenly didn't want to have to wait until tomorrow.

He could get his police records from the station, but he'd have to put a request in for it. If they were able to link Len to this heist then it would be suspicious if Barry took out his file on the same night of it. As much as Barry wanted to find out if Len had a record, he didn't want to be suspected of being an accessory to the crime.

There was only one other option then: Felicity.

Barry stood up and took stock of his surroundings. He recognised the road he was on because he'd ran along it many times in the past year. He was only a couple of minutes run away from Star City so, instead of going back home and ringing his friend, he decided to ask her in person.

When he arrived at the Arrowcave the only person there was Felicity, the others seemed out on patrol. The papers in the room fluttered in the breeze he created which alerted Felicity to his presence. For a moment, her face showed fear at having someone suddenly appear in their base of operations. But the moment passed quickly as she recognised Barry.

"You scared me," she complained but stood up to welcome Barry into a hug anyway.

"Sorry," he laughed and hugged her back. When she stepped back he pulled the cowl down off his face so that she could see him better.

"Why are you here?" She asked and then tagged on the "not that it's not good to see you" with a small laugh.

"I can't stay for long," he told her. "I was just in the neighbourhood and I was wondering if you might be able to do me a favour?"

"What do you need me to hack into?"

"Nothing major," he assured her. "I just need files on someone." Felicity sighed softly.

"Shame. I was hoping for a challenge." She led Barry back to the computer that she'd been sitting next to before he'd arrived. "Name?" She asked as she sat down and turned to the computer. Barry sat next to her and told her before he could lose his nerve.

"Leonard Neumann."

"Ooh, checking up on the boyfriend?" She said as she began to click away at the keypad. A smile emerged on her face. "Maybe this will be interesting after all." She flicked her eyes towards him and must have noticed something was off but she misread it. "Don't worry, Barry. I do background checks on all the guys I date too. Though sometimes I wish I hadn't… _really_ didn't need to remind myself of all the sleeping around Oliver had done when he was younger." She laughed nervously. "But I'm sure Len has nothing to hide."

Barry's stomach felt in knots and he couldn't speak suddenly with the lump forming in the back of his throat. He shook his head instead and Felicity turned to face him fully.

"What's wrong?" She asked and covered his gloved hand with hers. Barry wet his lips and cleared his throat.

"I'm not doing a background check on Len because he's my boyfriend. _Was_ my boyfriend," Barry corrected himself. They hadn't broken up officially yet, but how could Barry be with someone who could kill, rob and kidnap people like it was nothing? That's if Len even liked Barry in the first place… maybe he'd been using him all along to do recon on STAR Labs. "I'm doing it because he kidnapped Cisco."

"Cisco? Is he okay?" Felicity asked, shocked, and Barry nodded and rubbed his spare hand through his hair.

"Yeah, he let him go. But only after Len forced him to make a weapon and used it to pull a heist."

"Barry…" Felicity didn't seem to know what to say and after a second her eyes flitted back to the computer screen where Len's files waited, ready to be sifted through. "Are you sure you want to do this? The Flash doesn't need to take him down; you could let the police deal with it," she elaborated. And God, he hoped she was right; he hoped he could let the police deal with it because the thought of capturing someone that he loved…

Barry's mind froze. He didn't want it to be true but it _was_ : he loved Len. And that just made this whole situation worse.

"I… don't know," Barry admitted to Felicity. He didn't want to be the one to bring in Len but he also didn't think that he could let it go.

"I'll send you the files... but, just don't open them until you're sure you want to do this. Okay?" Barry nodded and Felicity returned back to the computer and compiled all Len's files into one document that she sent to Barry's email.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that I'm going to update every Monday and Thursday from now until this fic is complete :) leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts so far?


	16. Snippet 3

"Barry… are you okay?" Joe asked. Two days had passed since Len had kidnapped Cisco and shot at Barry, but the memory was just as painful. He nodded to Joe wordlessly but didn't meet his gaze. Joe, Iris, and Eddie all knew about… what had happened. But that didn't mean that he felt like talking about it.

Or dealing with it in any way, actually. Barry knew that it was unhealthy but he couldn't bring himself to mope around his house over Len, so he started covering some shifts at the station instead of enjoying his rest days. Eventually, Joe left Barry to his work and Barry hoped he'd be able to bury himself in so much casework that he could temporarily forget that Len was a thief.

But it didn't work.

Sure, for a little while Barry was able to get lost in his lab tests… but eventually he had to pick up some files and the second his hands brushed against the card cover his mind jumped back to the similar file he had in his inbox.

He hadn't opened it, Len's file. He'd made Felicity a promise that he wouldn't open it until he was sure he was ready to deal with what was inside. And right now he just wasn't ready and so there the file remained.

Barry shook those thoughts away and opened the first file, Kyle Abbot. Usually, Barry wouldn't look through the suspect files because that was the job of police officers and not CSIs, but he needed a distraction and after finishing all of his own work he might as well see if he can give Joe and Eddie some help. The files that he was currently looking over were the suspects for the 'exploding head' case that he'd helped with a few days ago.

He read through each file carefully but quickly. Kyle Abbot was obviously living under an assumed name, having appeared out of the blue about seven months ago with no prior papers… not even a birth certificate. He'd done plenty of bad in those seven months though, mostly in Gotham but he had been known to come to Central too. As Barry read the officers' accounts of the latest time that they'd tried, and failed, to arrest Abbot, Barry released that his excessive strength seemed a little too… meta. If this was their guy then the Flash would definitely need to get involved. Though Barry assumed that Abbot was more likely to _rip_ someone's head off than put a bomb in it.

Victor Gover was the next suspect. He was a former football player turned thief. He tended to leave a trail of bodies after each heist but no one had managed to gain enough evidence on him to bring charges.

Barry was able to dismiss George Harkness as a suspect after opening the file and noticing his picture. He remembered helping Team Arrow catch Captain Boomerang (as Cisco had dubbed him) last year and knew that this suspect was on Lian Yu. Barry put that file to the side and grabbed the next one: Lewis Snart.

Snart was a former cop turned thief who was recently released from prison. Barry looked through his charges and saw that he was most recently charged with several counts of robbery, battery, and child abuse. He turned the page to find that the majority of the rest of Snart's file had been redacted to protect the identity and privacy of the children who had been abused.

It was a little slower to read after that as Barry tried to make sense of the broken sentences and he didn't get much else out of the file which he was secretly happy about: after years of working to solve murders he was mostly desensitised to the horrors of his job by now, but child abuse cases were something different and they still affected him.

By the time that he was finished reading Lewis Snart's file, he realised that it was almost the end of his shift and so Barry packed up and watched the clock tick away the last couple of minutes.

[] [] []

The next time that Barry ran into Len, it was a complete accident. He'd asked Cisco not to tell him about any robberies that showed up on the crime detection software, hoping to avoid this exact moment, but he didn't think twice about responding to reports of gunfire in a semi-residential area.

When he arrived on the street it was just in time to see Len and his partner, the older man that Cisco had told Barry about, emerge from an art gallery. It had been five days since Barry last saw Len and so his feet slowed to a stop in the middle of the road; he couldn't bring himself to react as he watched them move towards a van. As he watched, he heard the sound of sirens approaching from behind. Len and his partner must have heard them too, because both men turned to look down the street, spotting Barry in the process.

The eldest man raised his gun in Barry's direction immediately and so Barry took cover behind the nearest building.

"Looks like you're up, Son," the older man said loudly enough for Barry to here and did he just say _son_?! "Make me proud."

"Like that's possible," Len snarked back and the older man laughed humourlessly but his next words were too low for Barry to be able to decipher them. The sound of the van door opening and slamming caught Barry's attention and he looked around the corner at the same time that Len shot the cold gun. The substance zipped past Barry, only about half a foot away from his head, and he sped off to take cover behind a different wall.

He noticed the older man getting in the van and driving away as Len stood in the same place as before, with his goggles on and cold gun at the ready. He fired again, missing again by barely a few inches.

"Drop the gun." Barry's voice vibrated his command and he inwardly pleaded for Len to listen to him. He didn't.

The sirens continued to approach, getting louder and louder as the seconds passed by. The thought of Len getting caught made Barry's stomach twist. He needed to make Len listen. He needed to make him drop that _God damn_ gun.

Cisco informed him through the comms that the first car would be there in less than a minute and Barry knew that this was his last chance to convince Len to stop before he was seen by the police and permanently linked with the cold gun and any and every crime perpetrated with it. So Barry acted without thinking it through: he rushed Len, grabbed his shoulders, and carried him into a nearby alley that was just out of view of the street. Barry pushed Len against a wall and held his shoulders firmly against the bricks.

"Neumann," he gritted out, remembering at the last moment not to call him 'Len'. "Put the gun down." His vibrating voice hid the waver in his words perfectly, making Barry appear much more confident than he felt.

Len's blue eyes were wide behind the goggles, filled with sadness. He slowly opened his mouth to speak.

"I'm sorry, Barry," he said softly and Barry froze in spot. Len reached up and grabbed the back of Barry's neck, pulling his lips down to meet his own in a quick kiss. Before Barry could react, Len pulled back and shot the cold gun at Barry's legs. Barry cried out in pain as the cold settled in and the ice formed to freeze him in spot.

"Len!" Barry called in a broken voice as Len left him stuck there, running away with the cold gun still in his hands and in the direction of the sirens that now sounded so close they must only be a road away. " _Len_!" Barry called again, ignoring Cisco's frightened voice in his ear as the engineer tried to find Barry a way out of the ice capturing his feet, but Len refused to turn back around and he disappeared behind the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that I took an extra few days to finish this chapter because I spent all week walking my (now exhausted) dog around my village to catch Pokémon… please forgive me. I've had chapter 17 finished for weeks so if I get plenty of comments then I promise to still update tomorrow as planned :) so, yeah, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts and theories.


	17. Heavy Hearts and Silent Screams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings again: panic attacks, mentions of abuse and generally Lewis being a dick and using Len and Lisa like in the show. There is one new thing to add though: sleep paralysis (which if you've never had it then you're lucky because it's fucking terrifying. I've only had it twice in my life but the first time was when I was like 13 and I honestly thought there was something in my room holding me down and trying to suffocate me). I gave a small overview of why this happens in the fic so anyone who doesn't know anything about sleep paralysis won't be confused. If you feel like you can't read any of that then skip the italicised section of this chapter and just read the end note for a summary. If you have any questions then feel free to ask!

Barry was once again ordered to stay at his desk because Len was involved in a crime. Though this time Len wasn't the victim and, instead of offering him sympathy, every officer in the station looked at him as though he was a rat.

The CCTV footage from Len and his partner's last heist came through and Lewis Snart (who was apparently Len's _father_ , as if Barry needed any more proof that Len was a bad guy) had been easily identified because of his recent release from prison. Joe had also been forced to come forward and identify Len, knowing that if he didn't then he and Barry would both be under suspicion too once the truth came out.

Barry decided to wait until late afternoon before going out for his lunch hour. He'd forgotten to bring any food with him but he didn't want to risk running into any of his co-workers while he was out of the precinct… he just couldn't deal with their judgmental faces right then. So he waited until long after everyone else would've eaten and he slowly walked down the stairs, dodging meeting anyone's gaze as he went. That was until he heard shouting. He was waiting by the elevator door when it started and he instantly turned his head around to search out the problem, which ended up being Lisa.

They must have brought her in to tell her that Len was the lead suspects in two heists along with her biological father, Lewis, and to interrogate her. Barry felt sorry for Lisa as she continued to shout that they were wrong, that Len would never do that. She had such confidence in her older brother and he hated seeing her lose it. She picked up her bag and coat from the officer's desk that she had been sitting at and turned to storm out of the precinct, right towards Barry.

He didn't know what to do… should he move away from the elevator before Lisa saw him or should he stay put and talk to her. She made eye contact with him before he could make up his mind.

" _Barry_ ," she mumbled as she pulled him into a hug which he awkwardly accepted, knowing that the entire precinct was watching them. He was a little surprised actually as he and Lisa didn't always get along, but she must have really needed the comfort because she held on and didn't pull away until after the lift dinged and the doors opened. Barry saw the tears in her eyes and he placed his hand on her shoulder and led her into the elevator, pressing the button for the ground floor.

"Have you eaten yet?" He asked and she shook her head. Barry took her to the diner across the street and they sat in a booth in the back. They didn't talk about anything until after they'd ordered and their waitress had walked away. Then the last of Lisa's control broke and she began to cry openly.

"He didn't… he didn't do this," Lisa denied and Barry remained silent, his heart felt like it was being ripped out of his chest. _How could Len do this to her?_ "Barry, you have to believe me. It's not Len. He's not a bad guy, he wouldn't do this."

"He's done things like this before," Barry replied, solemnly. He still hadn't read Len's file but, now that Len was officially a suspect, the officers on the case had taken out his police record and Barry had overheard a couple of them talking about a sealed record from something he'd done as a teenager. They'd stopped talking once they realised he was in the room so Barry knew that it had to have been about Len and he wondered what other crimes his boyfriend had committed.

"Yeah, when he was a _kid_." Lisa ran her hand through her hair, exposing the stitches under her fringe. "He's not _like_ that anymore. And even if he was, he would _never_ work with our father. We got taken away from him for a _reason_. And by some miracle, we got adopted by a family that was willing to put up with a grumpy 17-year-old with a juvie record and his emotionally stunted 8-year-old sister. They're good people, they raised us to be good people. Lenny hasn't done anything criminal since he was _16_. It _wasn't him_ ," Lisa insisted and Barry wished more than anything that she was right. He didn't want Len to be a criminal.

"I saw him on the tapes," he maintained. It wasn't exactly the truth but the point behind it was strong: Len had definitely committed those heists.

"Then it was someone who _looked like_ him." Barry thought back to how Len had whispered his name and kissed him last night.

"It was him," he said one last time.

"Then Lewis is forcing him to help him."

"How?" Barry asked as Lisa's insistence allowed a flicker of hope to grow in Barry's chest.

"I don't know, but he has to be!" Barry wasn't sure what to say so he just nodded and looked down at his hands.

"Even if that's true, I can't do anything about it. I'm not allowed on the case," he said slowly after a brief pause.

He comforted Lisa as best as he could during his lunch hour and afterwards he got back to work in a precinct filled with officers that he could tell would prefer him to be just about anywhere else.

[ _Two weeks earlier_ ]

_Len walked out of his sister's hospital room feeling like he was going to throw up. He'd stayed until after Lisa woke up from the surgery but she hadn't been very lucid and had gone back to sleep in only a few minutes. The nurses told him that she wouldn't be fully awake again until tomorrow so he might as well get some rest and he'd decided that was probably a good idea._

_As he walked out of her room though, he couldn't get the image of her beaten and bloodied face out of his head. Whoever had hurt his little sister better hope that the police found them first because he was going to make them_ pay _for this! He knew he was too distracted to ride his bike home and so he walked; his mind was in the clouds, dreaming up his revenge on his faceless enemy, which was probably why he didn't notice the man following him. Later he would curse himself for letting his instincts take a back seat in his later life, but at that moment he was clueless._

_A car pulled up a few paces ahead of him on the dark road and he paid it no interest as he walked closer. He didn't look at the man who exited the vehicle. He didn't recognise the face that had plagued his nightmares since he was a small child._

_"Hello, son."_

_The voice stopped him dead and Len slowly lifted his head to see his father. It was then that the man who had been following him hit him over the head from behind and knocked him out cold._

_Waking up an hour later was a slow process. His head throbbed and the pain was mind-numbing but his body remained asleep, even as he became conscious of his surroundings. He could feel the rough press of rope wrapped around his wrists, he could feel the cool concrete underneath his body, he could feel the draft of icy air breeze over him as he lay on the floor, and he could even hear the slow mumblings of Lewis Snart talking to his lackeys in the room… but he couldn't move. Len inwardly screamed at his muscles to obey him but it was no use; he couldn't roll over, he couldn't move his head or his hands… he couldn't even open his eyes._

_He knew he should give up and that his body would start responding on its own again soon. After all, he'd suffered from sleep paralysis before… The rational part of his mind reminded him that everyone's body was always paralysed during REM sleep to keep you from sleepwalking and that he was obviously just woken up so suddenly, probably from being roughly deposited onto the solid floor if the still cool concrete and his aching shoulder meant anything, that his body hadn't had time to adjust yet. It would pass within a moment or two._

_The scared part of his brain wouldn't listen to reason though. Having zero control over his body and not even being able to see? It felt like he was being held down and no matter how much he struggled he couldn't get free. He was paralysed and completely at the mercy of Lewis and his band of thugs. Len's breathing began to get harder and he worried that there was something on top of his chest, compressing his lungs so they weren't able to expand properly._

_He sat up suddenly, his eyes flung open as he gasped for breath. The relief he felt at being able to control his movements again was drowned out as his eyes landed on Lewis Snart and he was filled with nothing but trepidation._

_"Good, you're awake. I was starting to worry that James had hit you too hard," Lewis said, not sounding concerned in the slightest. Len took in his surrounds as quickly as possible: Lewis and another man were standing at a table that was covered in blueprints, they looked as though they were planning a heist, and three other men were standing around the room and looking menacing,_ hired help _, Len concluded… not likely there for the heist though. No, they weren't interested enough in the plans; they were probably just there to bring Len in and keep him subdued. The room itself seemed to be a rundown office space… possibly inside an old warehouse. There was only one door in and out of the large room._

_Len tugged at the ropes around his wrists as subtly as possible but he wasn't able to loosen them. Lewis walked closer and Len tried his best to make his expression blank; emotions were weaknesses to Lewis and Len needed to appear strong if he was going to get out of here. Lewis placed his hand on Len's shoulder and Len tensed but didn't flinch away. Then Lewis hauled him to his feet and led Len to the table covered in blueprints._

_"I want you to look at something," Lewis mumbled as he signalled for the other man standing at the table to move; the man did, taking the blueprints with him. Lewis then let go of Len completely and pushed a picture closer to him on the table. Len's eyes flicked over it briefly, a picture of some diamonds in a display case. "We're going to steal them," Lewis announced when Len said nothing._

_"_ We _?"_

_"Yes. Me, David, and you."_

_"You want_ my _help?" He asked incredulously, struggling to keep the disgust from his face and tone. Lewis' eyes narrowed._

 _"That's right." Len remained silent as his mind ran through escape options. Five against one wasn't very good odds, especially with his hands tied, but he'd take it if he had to. Lewis' lips thinned as the silence dragged on and he signalled for the other men in the room to wait outside._ One against one… much better odds _, Len thought as he continued to subtly tug at the rope around his wrists._

_The moment that the other men left Lewis removed a small metal object from his pocket and placed it on the table. Len recognised it instantly as a detonator switch._

_"You know what that is?" Lewis asked calmly._

_"Of course."_

_"It's linked to a fairly powerful bomb. One that currently resides in your sister's neck." Len tensed immediately, going completely still._

_"You put a bomb in Lisa?" He clarified, his voice icy cold._

_"Well… not me personally. That honour belonged to her boyfriend."_ Roscoe. That fucking rat _, Len internally cursed. If he ever saw that man again he was going to rip his head from his shoulders. Lewis picked the detonator back up from the table and placed it securely inside his pocket once more. "I would_ hate _to have to use it. But if you don't help me then I'm afraid I will have no choice." Len clenched his jaw and nodded once, causing Lewis to smile greedily._

_Lewis cut the ropes on Len's hands and went outside to pay off his hired help and send them home. Len leant against the table and stared into space as he attempted to calm his racing heart rate. Lisa was going to be okay. He would help to pull this one heist and then she would be fine. He'd get the bomb out of her and she would be safe. Eventually, Lewis and the other man, David, entered the room again. Lewis laid out the blueprints and went over the heist with Len._

_"What am I even doing here? I haven't pulled a heist in nearly 30_ years _," he eventually asked after the general plan was explained and the other man had left the room again, announcing that he was going to look into a way past the keypad._

_"You're here because you're my son."_

_"I am_ not _your son," Len bit back, venomously._

_"Just because you changed your last name doesn't mean that I am not your father!" Lewis growled out. "You are my blood!"_

_"You mean like Lisa is?" he mentioned quietly. Lewis could pretend to be kidnapping Len out of some twisted view of family reunions but Len was interested in learning how the man could use that as an excuse to justify putting a bomb in Lisa._

_"You're here because I need you to deal with the Flash," Lewis eventually admitted._

_"And why do you think I would know how to do that?"_

_"I saw you on the news. You took down that gunman in seconds; which means you haven't lost your edge. You may still be a little rusty but you have skill." Len was quiet as he listened to Lewis speak and he wanted to roll his eyes: having learnt basic self-defence didn't mean he was able to take on someone running at super-speed. "And then there's that_ other thing _." Len swallowed thickly as Lewis leered at him. "My memory may not be as good as yours but do you really think I'd forget how useful an eidetic memory could be?"_

_Len had never hated his perfect recall more than he did right then. He hadn't always had an eidetic memory… no, that had been a side effect from taking one-too-many blows to the head as a child._

_He didn't tell people about it anymore either, not since he found out most people would consider him_ lucky _for having perfect recall of his memories. But then again, they didn't have the same kind of memories as Len did. He could remember every hand that Lewis had raised to him, every broken bone he'd received, every snide remark he'd overheard thrown his way, and he could remember the look on the faces of the people he loved when he'd disappointed them. He'd always thought of his eidetic memory as a curse and now that Lewis wanted to use it to hurt people, he was surer than ever before._

_"You can recall everything you've ever heard about the Flash and every moment you've seen of him on the news. And now you've even met him in person. I'm sure it won't take you long to figure out his weaknesses."_

[] [] []

 _Len already knew what the Flash's weakness was. It was civilians. The one-way Len knew for sure to keep the Flash distracted was to hold hostages… but he_ couldn't _tell Lewis that. He didn't want anyone's death on his hands._

 _The obvious answer would be to slow him down but Len didn't quite know how to do that. He used to know a weapons dealer, however, that just_ might _have a way. So Len accepted the laptop from Lewis and he found the man's contact details. He set up a meeting immediately and that was that. He was left alone with his thoughts for the day. But Len's thoughts were…_ dangerous _right now._

_Len went back to his laptop and brought up all the videos and all the articles of the Flash that he could._

_A few hours later he met with his contact and found that the weapon he needed did actually exist. Unfortunately, the company that the man had stolen the weapon from found him and stole it back before he was able to sell it on. Len paid him for the information, his chest constricting suddenly once he found out that the company he'd have to break into was STAR Labs… which was apparently_ owned _by Barry. He felt more than a little surprised to find out that his boyfriend's company was making weapons and he wondered, not for the first time,_ how exactly _Barry wound up owning STAR Labs._

 _Len went back to his apartment and tried to get some sleep but his night was restless. He got up and went for a run to cool his head and clear his mind, and after taking a shower he laid out sheet after sheet of his plans on his coffee table. He'd left his phone on silent for the past few days as he tried to keep Lisa safe by following Lewis' orders, but he knew that Barry kept trying to call him. So it shouldn't really have been a surprise when the younger man showed up on his doorstep. Len had been trying to keep his distance from Barry because he didn't want Lewis finding out about his boyfriend and gaining any_ more _ammunition to use against Len._

 _But now that he was here, Len couldn't help but invite him to spend some time together. He realised how much he'd missed Barry as they'd kissed. And after they'd fucked he felt guilty, realising he'd just used Barry as a distraction to get away from his problems for a little while. And then he'd felt even_ guiltier _as he realised that this was a perfect opportunity to find out some information on STAR Labs that he might be able to use for his heist._

_As Len encouraged Barry to keep Cisco busy in the mornings he wondered if his boyfriend would forgive him if he ever found out the truth._

_He tried not to dwell on that thought too much as he spent the next few days surveilling STAR Labs so that he could steal the cold gun from them. He was surprised to find the Flash running in and out of the building at varying times of the day, realising that whatever was going on at STAR Labs had something to do with metahumans._

_He hoped to be able to find some sort of pattern to the Flash's comings and goings but he didn't have long enough, knowing that once Barry's rest days came then Cisco's schedule was likely to change. But he also knew that jumping the gun on these kind of things was too risky, so he was going to leave this particular heist until Barry's last shift. That gave him five days to keep track of everyone who entered and left STAR Labs and what times they did so._

_Come Monday Len was not ready but he knew he had no choice but to steal this weapon, having been reminded just the previous night the extent to which Lewis was willing to go on this job. Watching David's head get blown off was something that Len didn't think he would ever forget and he couldn't help but picture Lisa screaming and clutching her head in the same way if Lewis decided to flip the switch because he didn't think that Len was doing a good enough job._

_He pictured Lisa's death over and over and over again and it drove him insane. He would do anything to stop her from experiencing that._

_He would even kill the Flash._

[] [] []

_Len was counting. Thirty seconds; they only had thirty seconds left until the vault alarm would activate. And then if they were unlucky, which Len always was, it would be just a matter of seconds before the Flash showed up. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven…_

_He tried to warn Lewis but the older man wouldn't listen._

_Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen…_

_Lewis finally managed to crack the code on the safe and he was pulling out the diamonds, but then got side-tracked pulling out additional scores that were stored in the safe. Len gritted his teeth, he tried to warn the older man that they should go but he paid Len no attention._

_Eight. Seven. Six._

_Len put the goggles on and activated his weapon, ready._

_Three. Two. One._

_Len took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He walked out of the vault and into the hallway. There was no one there yet. He waited a moment before turning back to Lewis. The older man had finally finished filling up his bag and was now heading towards Len and the exit. The air suddenly felt disturbed, static almost, and Len spun back around to face the hallway. He was firing the gun before his eyes even truly took in what he was seeing._

_He'd convinced himself that he was going to have to kill the Flash to save Lisa. But when it came down to it he couldn't bring himself to aim for the heart and instead the blast from his cold gun hit the Flash's shoulder, sending the hero flying backwards and rushing for cover. As long as Lewis_ believed _that he was playing his part, then he wouldn't detonate the bomb._

_Len led Lewis out of the building and towards the get-away car, surprised when the Flash didn't move to follow them. Lewis gushed about the heist all the way back to the warehouse, he was in such a good mood that he wasn't even that bothered when he found out that Cisco had escaped._

_"Let Lisa go," Len demanded as Lewis packed the room to destroy any evidence that they had ever been there. "I did what you want. Now let her go."_

_"Let her go?" Len nodded and Lewis' smile turned crooked. "That was never the deal." Len's stomach turned and he could taste acid in the back of his throat but he kept his face in an emotionless mask. "I told you that if you did as I said then she wouldn't be harmed. But I never said I would let her go after the heist was over… no, I think we make a good team, Son. I'm not going to just give away my leverage so soon." Lewis smirked and dramatically left the room and so Len collapsed into a chair. This was never going to be over. He was never going to be free of Lewis Snart._

_Len eventually pulled himself out of the chair and went in search of a drink… something strong. It took a bit of searching but he eventually came across a bar called Saints and Sinners as he walked aimlessly around downtown Central City. The bar was loud and it stunk of spilt beer and weed, but he could tell instantly that it was the kind of place where he wouldn't be bothered by anyone else so long as he kept to his own business._

_He sat at the bar and ordered a whisky which he sipped slowly. He tried to drown out his thoughts from the night but one memory kept resurfaces and playing over and over in his mind; the sound of pain that the Flash made when Len shot him with the cold gun. He just had to hope that the guy was okay._

_The more that he thought about it, the more Len realised that the Flash was… familiar._

_He thought back to the first second after the Flash had shown up. He'd barely got a glimpse of the hero but his eidetic memory allowed him to recall the moment perfectly and the more he thought about it, the more similarities he noticed between the Flash and Barry._

_Len knocked back the last of his drink and ordered another. He couldn't say for sure and wouldn't be_ able _to say for sure until he met the Flash again… but with the similarities, the Flash's comings and goings at the lab that Barry owned, Cisco's warning not to hurt him, and how Barry was always getting called away for_ 'work' _in the evening. Not to mention how much he ate and how many pairs of shoes he'd managed to get through since Len had met him…_

 _Len ran his hand down his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Barry was the Flash. He'd just_ shot _his boyfriend!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing new really happened in this chapter but I wanted a flashback to show everything that Len had been doing since Lisa was attacked, as well as explain a couple of points and answer a question or two. I hope this chapter was okay.
> 
> So, explanation time for those who skipped the italicised section: Lewis hired Roscoe (Lisa's evil ex) to jump her and put a bomb in her neck, making it look like a mugging. He did this because Len has an eidetic memory (the result of taking too many beatings as a child) and Lewis wanted to use that to figure out the Flash's weaknesses and keep him at bay during heists. Len pulled away from Barry as much as possible so that Lewis wouldn't have someone else to use against him. He watched all the videos of the Flash he could find and met with a weapons dealer, finding out about the cold gun. He kept an eye on STAR Labs for a little while, but he put off actually robbing the place until Lewis blew up the head of the other guy they were working with, reminding Len that it was Lisa's life on the line.  
> After acquiring the cold gun, he couldn't bring himself to actually shoot to kill - which is why he shot the Flash's shoulder instead of his chest in chapter 15. Now, remember that Barry never expected it to be Len at that heist and so he never blurred his face? Len didn't realise at the time but thinking back on it, with his eidetic memory, Len recognised that Barry was the Flash.


	18. Are you a Sinner or a Saint?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realised that I accidently added Wally into this fic before he entered in canon. So, I came up with an excuse for that… I've decided that Iris and Wally's mum wanted to come to Central to find her sooner than she did in canon, but once she found out about Eddie's death she delayed it as long as possible so as to not overwhelm Iris. In this fic, Eddie isn't dead and so Wally and Iris' mum came into it sooner :)

Len stared emptily at his glass and watched the ice bob in the whisky as the liquid settled. He was in Saints and Sinners again because, unless he wanted some father/son bonding, he had nowhere else to go. He would take this dive bar over spending time with Lewis any day.

He picked his glass back up and took another sip. He wasn't sitting at the bar today because the stool seats were too uncomfortable for anything long term. He'd been sitting in this bar all day so he'd grabbed himself a leather-padded booth to occupy and he didn't feel much like leaving, even as eight pm rolled by.

He wished he could see Lisa again, Barry too, but that was completely out of the question if he wanted to keep them both safe. Since he had figured out Barry's little secret he'd been pondering whether to tell the superhero the truth about why he was doing all of this. But he realised pretty quickly that it wasn't worth the risk; sure, Barry could probably take down Lewis without breaking a sweat… but would he be able to do so without Lewis flipping the switch on that detonator in his pocket? Len didn't know and he didn't want to find out.

So he sat in Saints and Sinners and he nursed his drink, knowing that by the time he got back to Lewis the older man will have already figured out what he wanted them to steal next. Len longed for the good old days when Lisa was safe and Barry didn't think he was a monster… he even missed his shitty little apartment that he hadn't gone back to since he kidnapped Cisco.

… The police had probably trampled the place by now, looking for a clue that would lead them to him. Len took another sip and watched the ice cubes knock against each other as he placed his glass back on the table in front of him.

He thought about Barry and about that impromptu kiss from last night: not his finest moment, Len could admit, but he wasn't able to resist one last kiss to say goodbye and sorry to the man he loved. Len ran his hand over his shaven head and leant back in his seat to take a deep breath.

The crowd in Saints and Sinners began shouting and hollering at the TV, sounding like they were cheering on a match of some kind. Len wasn't sure who was playing but he could do with something to get him out of his head, so he grabbed his drink and stood up to move to a seat closer to the TV.

However, as his eyes landed on the screen, he realised that there wasn't a match on after all. His heart raised into his throat as he stood in place and watched the news broadcasting live from only a couple of streets away. No one else seemed to notice his horrified look at they continued to jeer and applaud.

[] [] []

Barry fell to the floor, his body feeling numb from being hit by Mardon's lightning. He wasn't at the top of his game tonight, probably hadn't been for about a week and had just been lucky enough to avoid running into metas during that time… Cisco and Iris were right, he should have taken a few nights off to adjust to everything that had happened this last week before jumping back into crime fighting… his head just wasn't in the game.

He tried to pull himself up again but Mardon just hit him with another bolt of lightning. Wind wiped against Barry's face and he saw the dark clouds above getting bigger and more threatening. Mardon started taunting him, not that he could hear what he was saying over the sound of the howling wind and the crackling of his fried comms, his face a sneer.

Barry tried to pull himself to his feet but every muscle in his body hurt, making the simple task a slow one. Barry knew that the only way to save his life would be to run away but he was struggling to get any of his weak muscles to obey him. He needed a few seconds to heal. He needed a miracle.

Mark Mardon advanced forward and smiled down at Barry.

"I guess this is goodbye, Flash," he said. But before Mardon could do anything, he was knocked back by a bright blue/white substance that left a chill in its wake. Barry looked from where Mardon was contorted on the floor to where the substance had come from.

"You need to take a break; go chill out," Len said to Mardon as he lowered his cold gun. Barry pulled himself into an upright position and blinked his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing anything, but Len was already turning to leave.

A cluster of emotions bubbled inside Barry as he watched Len, the guy who had just _saved his life_ , walk away and he gave in to his impulse to follow him. It was slow at first as Barry's body was still numb, though he was regaining more and more control by the second, once he'd got to his feet he was feeling much more stable.

Barry raced after Len, maybe a little clumsily but no one could tell since he was going at super speed again now, and found him only two streets away and walking quickly with his head down as though nothing had just happened. He was wearing a long and thick navy blue coat which was hiding his cold gun. There was no one else on the street and so Barry stopped just a few steps behind him.

"Len," he said, his voice sounding heartbroken even to his own ears. Len paused.

"Turn around and go back home, Barry" Len said without moving to face him and he began walking again. "I don't want to hurt you but if you follow me, then I'll have no other choice." Barry shook his head and took a few more steps forward.

"You won't hurt me, you just saved my life," he insisted.

"Don't mistake my sentiment for anything greater. I like you, Barry, but I'm not going to let you get in my way anymore," Len whispered as he turned his hardened face towards the younger man. Barry's gut twisted and his steps slowed, allowing Len to walk away. He wasn't sure what he believed. His opinion had changed so much about Len over the last week that he didn't think it held any weight anymore anyway: believing he was a good guy and then a bad guy and then a good guy again… it was exhausting.

Barry needed to know the truth and there was only one place that he could think of where his answers might lie…

Barry turned around and ran back to STAR Labs, stopping back at the street where he'd faced Weather Wizard on his way but finding that Mardon had already managed to scurry away. He looked around for a little bit but there were too many places that the metahuman could be hidden away at in downtown Central City and so Barry let him go. He'd get him next time.

"Man, that was a close one," Cisco exhaled once Barry got back to STAR Labs. "I honestly thought I was gonna lose you there, buddy." Barry got dressed and handed his friend the suit so that Cisco could get started on repairing the comms unit that had been damaged by the lightning strikes. "How did you get out?"

"Len…" Barry started to say and Cisco stood up a little straighter as he waited for Barry to finish. "He saved me."

"Hmm," Cisco muttered noncommittally.

"You don't believe me…" Barry murmured and Cisco shook his head,

"No, I do. If there's one thing I know about him, it's that he loves you," Cisco was quick to say and Barry's heart ached. Was that really all this was? Was Len a bad guy who just couldn't watch his ex die? Or was he a good man who needed the Flash's help?

"Then I guess it's time we knew a little more…" Barry said and walked to the computer. He quickly logged into his email and downloaded the file that Felicity had sent him last week. Cisco didn't say anything and simply hovered behind Barry as he flicked quickly through the file, his heart aching with every word.

The first thing to come up was Len's police record: nothing major, just a few fights and a B&E back when he was a teen. After that the file got harder to read, starting with his Child Permanence Report. Barry wasn't in child protection so he had never read a CPR before and he dreaded finding out the exact reason why Len and Lisa were taken away from Lewis.

 

**Name of the child being placed for adoption: Leonard Snart.**

**Other names child is known by (including familiar names): Leo**.

 

Barry paused after the first two lines and took a deep breath. He continued to scan through the report.

 

**Current health: Child was taken to the hospital early Monday morning, presenting with a black eye and a bleeding cut that wouldn't clot on his forehead from getting into a fight at school. Leonard appeared very scared once informed that his father had been called and was on his way. The hospital discharge social worker who was on duty at the time of hospitalisation was called based on concerns put forward by the doctor and a court order was immediately obtained to allow the said doctor to examine Leonard for signs of child abuse.**

**Upon examination, Leonard was also found to have several small second-degree burns on his chest and multiple scars littering his torso (see pictures attached), some of which appeared to date back many years whereas others appeared to be only a month old. A large purple bruise was also found on Leonard's chest and x-rays showed a cracked rib. At first, the child said this bruising happened in the school fight but he later confided that his father had hit him a few days prior to the examination for coming home late. Otherwise, Leonard is physically healthy and displays no signs of illness.**

**The child** **appears to suffer from depression and anxiety but further information is required for an accurate diagnosis of his mental health.**

 

The pictures made Barry stop again. He'd seen those scars before but they were much more faded now than they were thirty years ago. The description went on for several pages as it documented Len's account of how each scar was made and how old they all were. Barry remembered running his hands comfortingly over Len's scars as he looked at the red, jagged, marks in the pictures and felt sick.

He was beginning to understand why Lisa was so confident that Len would never work with Lewis willingly. Sure, he'd seen the scars before and Len had implied that he'd got them from his father, but reading the actual description for each one made it all seem much more real than the vague comment he'd been told. Barry suddenly felt guilty about reading this CPR as he knew that Len didn't want Barry to know about any of this… he skipped over the rest of the descriptions.

 

**Siblings (full and half):  
** ****Name: Lisa Snart  
** **DOB: 08/08/1979  
** **Place of birth: Central City Hospital  
** **Gender: Female** **

 

**Current circumstances and legal status of the sibling: Child has also been removed from the care of her father and placed into temporary care. Legal proceedings will also be moving forward to place Lisa into adoption due to the abuse that she has suffered at the hands of Lewis Snart, though this is expected to take longer as her abuse was more emotional than physical and so there is less evidence available. It is believed that once Leo is put up for adoption it will be easier for his sister to join him.**

 

**Ability and willingness of family members or relevant persons to permanently care for the child: Father has been arrested but has expressed a desire to get Leo and Lisa back in his care once he has served his sentence. However, given the evidence against him, social services cannot comply with this wish as his care has been deemed as unsafe. He has asked to be able to keep contact with Leonard and Lisa. Both children have been informed of this and have expressed no desire to remain in contact with their father.**

**Mother has been found and been informed of this CPR but wants no contact.**

**No other living relatives or relevant people.**

 

Barry sure was glad that Lewis lost that one, he shuddered to think what could have happened to Len and Lisa if they hadn't been taken away from Lewis.

 

**Wishes and feelings of the child (includes carer's, social worker's and child's wishes): Child has only expressed one wish since being in care and that is to be kept with his younger sister, Lisa, who has also been taken into care. So far, social workers have been able to keep both children together.**

**Leo has refused to express any other wishes when questioned and it isn't yet understood if this is due to depression or stubbornness.**

 

Once Barry had finally finished Len's CPR there wasn't much left of the file and only places of residence and employment remained; Barry skimmed through that but as expected he found nothing useful there. He closed down the file as Cisco hovered behind him and waited for his verdict. It had been a large file and he'd had to pause several times while reading it because of how sensitive the topic was for him, but it had still only taken Barry less than fifteen seconds to read the entire thing.

"Can you bring me up Lewis Snart's police records?" Barry asked slowly and Cisco nodded and hurried to lean over Barry to access the sensitive information. Barry pushed away from the table to give Cisco room to work and himself some distance from the horrible things he had just read.

"Why do you need his records?" Cisco asked cautiously.

"Because Lisa was right… there's no way that Len is doing this of his own free will. Lewis has to be forcing him somehow." Cisco stayed quiet, though he seemed more thoughtful than sceptical and he didn't ask if he could read Len's file.

"Speaking of Lisa…" he said slowly as he pulled back from the computer and turned to look at Barry, Lewis Snart's police record downloading on the screen. "She called Caitlin." Barry's eye's opened wide and Cisco raised one hand to stop him from interrupting. "Apparently, she's been trying to find the Flash to get his help freeing Len and she thought that the wife of a known superhero might be able to help. Cait called me while you were on patrol, demanding to know what is going on here. I told her about Len and she said she's going to book the first flight back."

"How angry was she that we didn't tell her?" Barry asked but he already knew the answer from Cisco wince.

"Very." They both went silent and Cisco pulled up a chair. They could only deal with one thing at a time and right now they needed to get more information on Lewis and find out what the police had already put together about the case.

Barry was surprised when he started reading the file and instantly remembered reading it last week, though that time he'd been consulting for Joe and Eddie's case… the one where a man's head had been blown up. He took control of the computer again and skipped to the end of the file to find that Lewis was now the main suspect in that case.

He wondered why Joe had never told him about this before realising that the names of lead investigators had changed and the case had been taken away from both Joe and Eddie because of the clash of interest. The link between Joe and Lewis was weak but he supposed that, once a conviction was made, having a suspect's son dating the foster son of one of the lead investigators could be twisted enough to put doubt into the minds of the jury and get the case thrown out.

Cisco hadn't said anything against Barry skipping to the end of the file but he was now gaping as much as Barry was as he read what was written on the screen. Lewis had blown up the head of one of his known associates the night before he and Len had committed that first heist together…

"A bomb…" Cisco muttered slowly as he came to the same realisation as Barry had. Barry nodded. "Do you think there's one in Len too?"

"I…" Barry took a deep breath and shook his head. "No. It's got to be in Lisa." The timing added up, Len only started acting weird after she'd been mugged and Len was more protective of her than anyone else: his CPR had shown that he's got several of his scars by taking beatings that were originally meant for his little sister. He'd been standing up for Lisa since he was a child and that was the kind of thing that a man like Lewis Snart would use to his advantage.

A few hours later and Barry was collecting Cait and Ronnie from the airport. Cait was as angry as Barry had expected but she calmed down a bit once Barry explained that he and Cisco hadn't wanted to interrupt their honeymoon and that was the only reason why they'd been kept out of the loop.

Once she had been filled in completely she called Lisa back and asked her to come to STAR Labs immediately, deciding to leave the exact details for the urgency until they were in person. Barry wanted to help but he knew that it was probably time to make himself scarce before Lisa showed up and put together that he was the Flash.

[] [] []

Lisa wasn't sure what was going on when Caitlin Snow rang her back and demanded that she come to them right away, but she knew that getting help was her only way to help Len. She would do just about anything to convince the Flash that her brother was in danger. This was why she held back her questions as she arrived at STAR Labs and was greeted by an energetic man with a cute smile. She was asked to sit still on the table that said man, Cisco his name was, directed her to as he shone a light against her neck.

In the meantime, Doctor Snow did something on a large computer screen. Cisco's eyes widened slightly and his mouth dropped open as he looked over Lisa's shoulder directly at the screen. Lisa felt her heart rate pick up in her chest, the guy really wasn't very good at keeping his emotions hidden and a mixture of surprise and fear were evident on his face.

"Oh boy," the guy muttered.

"What is it?" She demanded, looking from Cisco to Caitlin, who was only slightly better at concealing her emotions, for answers.

"Lisa, there are traces of _thermite_ on your skin," she said, directly to the point.

"Thermite…" Lisa said disbelievingly and she felt a nervous smile slip onto her face. "Like an explosive?"

"… Not _like_ an explosive…"

"It's a bomb," Cisco interrupted and Lisa turned back to look at him, her eyes wide and the smile completely disappeared from her face. She stayed silent as she tried to think of _how the fuck she could have a bomb in her neck_?! "When you were attacked… you must have been injected with it," Cisco said more softly after taking a second to calm down.

"Why would someone put a _bomb_ in my neck?" She demanded. She'd had a feeling that the attack hadn't been random like the police thought, but this was just insane!

"We can't know for sure," Caitlin said. "But you were adamant that your brother would never work with Lewis…"

"You think…" Lisa couldn't even say the words, they got stuck in the back of her throat and it felt painful to swallow around that lump in her throat. After a couple of deep breaths, she was finally able to continue, though her voice was uneven. "That Lewis did this to me… so that he could have control over Lenny."

Neither of them said anything and it was evident from their silence that that was _exactly_ what they thought. They both gave her a moment alone after that, which she was entirely grateful for. It was hard to accept that Lewis had done this to her, even after the horrible childhood they'd had this was difficult to get her head around. And now her brother was once again putting himself in danger to protect her…

Len had always been protecting her, even when they were kids he used to rile their father up whenever she did something wrong so that Lewis would beat him instead of her… she hated to think about what he could be going through right now. And she hated knowing that he was doing it all for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say sorry for the late update. I had the majority of this finished on Wednesday (the day before I was supposed to update) but I still hadn't finished my cosplay for London Film & Comic Con (that I went to this weekend) so that took priority. I'll try to post the final 2 chapters of this fic this week


	19. Cold Fury

Barry paced anxiously from one side of Joe's house to the other as he waited for the call from Cisco. He wanted to help but there was nothing to be done until after the bomb was removed. Cisco had a way to find Len by tracing the cold gun but there was no point in Barry running in to rescue his boyfriend until after Lewis' leverage was gone.

When Barry's phone finally rang he felt some of the tension release from his shoulders.

"Hey, uh, Flash," Cisco said once Barry answered, indicating that Lisa was still in the room with him. "Lisa's safe and I've got a read on the cold gun, so it's time to put on that suit." The last of Barry's worry flitted away and he sighed in relief as Cisco told him where to find Len.

"Thank you, Cisco," Barry said before hanging up the phone. He put his Flash suit back on and started running until he was standing outside of an abandoned warehouse in downtown Central. It was only 5 pm but it was already dark out, which made the whole scene a little unsettling but it also made it easier to pinpoint exactly where in the building Len would be. Barry flashed inside the warehouse until he came to the only room in the building which wasn't pitch black; a man stood inside the dimly lit office with his back to Barry staring down at the papers that were scattered on the table in front of him, the cold gun sitting right beside his hand.

The papers that weren't weighed down by the cold gun blew up into the air, alerting the man, who was definitely _not_ Len, to his presence. Lewis spun around and raised the cold gun in Barry's direction immediately. He fired and Barry was forced to duck out of the way of the cold substance. Lewis continued to fire as Barry charged him.

Barry grabbed the gun with both hands and pushed it away from his direction, elbowing Lewis in the face while doing so. Lewis fell back and Barry pulled the cold gun away from him.

He punched the older man once and pushed him against the wall, one hand grabbing Lewis' jacket menacingly as the other held the cold gun away from Lewis' reach. Barry didn't usually enjoy hurting criminals but he felt a little proud as he saw blood dripping from Lewis' nose.

"Where's your son?" He demanded. Len obviously wasn't here and he needed to get to him and let him know that Lisa was safe before he did anything else criminal: the more crimes he committed, the less likely it was that the police would accept his self-defence and coercion plea. Lewis laughed, his smile wide, and so Barry slammed him back against the wall just a little harder than he really needed to.

"You don't need to worry about him, anymore," Lewis coughed out.

"What happened?" Barry asked, trying to keep his voice strong and harsh even as he felt worry bubble under the surface. Lewis stayed silent and so Barry flitted his eyes across the room but there was no way he'd be able to look for clues while Lewis was still here. He'd have to come back and hope that whatever was behind Lewis' words was simply a bluff. Maybe when he came back Len would be here?

Barry wanted to keep hope but that seemed unlikely. So he decided to take Lewis back to STAR Labs, so that he could easily question him, instead of handing him over to the police.

[] [] []

"Hey," Cisco said, standing in the doorway of the small room with a sad smile on his face while holding two cups of coffee. Lisa couldn't bring herself to smile in return, not when she had just had a bomb removed from her neck and was now waiting on the Flash to bring her brother back to her. "Len's going to be fine. He's a survivor." Lisa frowned at Cisco… there was something in the way that he and Caitlin talked about Lenny that made her think that they knew him. Cisco coughed nervously under her scrutiny. "At least, he sounds like he is… from what you've said about him. I mean, granted, you've not said _all that_ much about him, but what you _did_ say left an impression."

Lisa allowed her eyes to stray away from the engineer and to the ground at her feet as she felt the corners of her lips twitch. She was still sad and weighed down by her worries but, for a very brief moment, she felt a little bit lighter.

"Thank you," she said, though still feeling a little curious about how exactly Cisco knew her brother… she wondered if he would tell her if she asked him but figured that the answer to that was probably 'no' if his little ramble was anything to go by.

Cisco hung in the doorway for a few more seconds before taking a step into the room. He walked closer to Lisa and handed her one of the cups of coffee. The smell was comforting and familiar as it reached her nose. She took the offered cup and breathed in the scent, letting the heat fill her lungs and warm her up from the inside. She took her first sip and tried to muster up a smile of gratitude for Cisco.

The engineer looked as though he was about to say something, but suddenly there was a flash of lightning going past the doorway and a gust of wind followed it. Lisa stood up and put her cup on the side, ready to follow the trail of lightning until it led her to the Flash and, hopefully, her brother.

Cisco struggled to keep up with her as she marched down the corridor; she wasn't sure if she was going in the right direction but she couldn't just sit and wait anymore and so she kept on going. Eventually, she made her way back to the cortex; but after a quick glimpse inside, she discovered that Doctor Snow was in there but Len and the Flash were not. She frowned and spun on her heels, intending to go back into the corridor and hunt the Flash down until he produced her brother.

"Wait, Lisa!" Cisco called after her as he marched away but she continued another few feet before a bolt of lightning crackled from down the corridor and suddenly the Flash appeared in front of her. She took a quick step back in surprise but soon recovered and narrowed her eyes at the superhero.

"Where is he? Where's my brother?" She demanded an explanation but the Flash just shook his head. For a moment Lisa's heart jumped into her throat but then the Flash was talking, his voice vibrating against the walls of the narrow corridor.

"I captured Lewis but Len wasn't there." Len… Lisa hardly ever called her brother by that name so how did Cisco and the Flash know that he liked to be called _Len_? She wondered again how her brother knew these people but decided it was a question for another time. Right now all she was interested in was getting her brother back.

"What do you mean he wasn't there? Where is he?"

"Lewis won't say," the Flash explained and Lisa scoffed. She could feel her anger and worry bubbling to the surface and knew that it was just a matter of time until she snapped.

"Hey, Lisa. How about you come sit down and we figure out a way to find your brother?" Cisco said in a soothing voice behind her and Lisa pursed her lips, taking a deep breath in and out through her nose. After a moment she had started to feel a little calmer, just enough to realise that snapping at the only people who were trying to help her and Lenny wasn't going to do either of them any good. She turned and walked back into the cortex without another word.

Caitlin was standing in the doorway and moved out of the way so that she could get past. Cisco and the Flash followed her inside and she listened to the superhero's explanation of what happened. The Flash put the weapon that they were referring to as the cold gun on the desk as he talked and Cisco sat at a computer and brought up a video feed from somewhere inside the particle accelerator that they had modified to function as cells. Lewis Snart was pacing on screen and Lisa felt an inkling of satisfaction as she noticed him wiping blood from his face.

"He knows where Len is. I'm sure of it. He's just not saying anything," the Flash said and Lisa felt her anger bubbling inside and waiting to explode. Her eyes landed on the cold gun that was sitting on the desk right next to Cisco and she had an idea.

Slowly she moved forward and leant over the desk to get a close view of Lewis on the monitor, draping her body over the cold gun slightly so it was hidden from everyone's view. The Flash stopped talking and it seemed like everyone was waiting for her reaction.

"Can I go talk to him?" She asked quietly and she knew that everyone in the room was unsure what to say.

"Are you sure?" Caitlin eventually asked and Lisa nodded, her eyes remaining on the screen.

"Yeah, I-" Cisco began to say as he rose from his seat, but Lisa interrupted him.

"And I'd appreciate if no one was listening in," she said pointedly. Cisco instantly clicked off of the video so that no one would be able to eavesdrop on her conversation. Lisa subtly swiped the cold gun off the table and under her leather jacket as she stood up straight. It was a little heavier than it looked, but no one seemed to notice her take it. Keeping it in position under her arm as she followed the Flash and Cisco down the corridor was a little more difficult but she had been pickpocketing for Lewis when she was as young as five-years-old and it came back to her now like riding a bike.

As the seconds ticked on by, Lisa got more and more nervous. She hadn't seen Lewis since she was a child and she had hoped she would never have to speak to him again. But the circumstances were too important to let her fear get in the way. She needed to get her brother back but it was obvious that the members of Team Flash were too good to be willing to do what was needed. So, Lisa would have to be the one to do it.

It wasn't long later when they arrived at a large metal door. The Flash hung back as Cisco went to the keypad. He typed something in and then turned back to face Lisa, she moved one hand to mess with her hair so that Cisco's attention wouldn't be drawn from her face and he wouldn't notice the slight bulge of the cold gun under her jacket.

"We'll be right here, okay. We'll keep the door closed so when you want to get out just shout or knock on the door and I'll open it." Lisa nodded. Cisco pressed one more button on the keypad and then the door opened to reveal a row of cells on the other side, one of them containing Lewis Snart.

Lewis looked up as the door opened and a slow smile spread across his face which made Lisa want to shiver, she managed to keep her repulsion hidden as she stepped through the threshold. Lisa took a deep breath before turning back to Cisco and nodding. He pressed a button on the keypad and then the doors were closing.

"You've grown up well, Lisa," Lewis said and Lisa stayed completely still and completely quiet. Lewis waited a little longer before speaking again. "No hug for your old man?"

"You put a bomb in me." Lewis' face remained blank, bored, which didn't surprise Lisa. The only emotion she ever remembered him displaying were was anger.

"So they figured that out, did they?" Lisa slowly moved her hand under her jacket and removed the cold gun as she continued to stare at Lewis, whose eye flicked down to the gun in her hand. The room was tense and silent for several seconds before Lisa stepped forward and started inspecting the gun. There was a switch at the front of the grip where the magazine release button usually sat and she flipped it up to power up the gun. A slight chill travelled over her hands and she smiled.

"I want to know where my brother is," she said without looking up from the glowing chamber of the cold gun.

"He's dead."

Lisa tensed, her teeth snapping together and grinding. She shook her head and looked up at her father.

"I don't believe you. Lenny's a survivor," she spoke, surprised at how calm and cold her voice sounded. "Tell me what you know, and maybe you'll live past tonight." Lewis shook his head.

"You don't have it in you to kill me," he laughed. "You always were weak. Just another disappointment."

"I know you mean that as an insult… but being a disappointment to you is one of my proudest accomplishments." She raised the cold gun and aimed it at the glass separating him from the rest of the room. Cisco had told her about this gun and what it could do, it could shatter metal if she shot at it for long enough. The glass of that door was _nothing_. "Where is my brother?"

Lewis stayed quiet, thinking that he was calling her bluff, but she was fully committed to this. She shot a warning shot at the glass, just a quick burst that created a thin layer of ice, and Lewis stepped back. She lowered the gun and smiled widely.

"Last chance to tell me before I break through there and start freezing off body parts," she warned and Lewis finally started to realise that this wasn't a bluff.

"Mark Mardon," Lewis said and Lisa took a step closer. She recognised that name from the news. "That freak who can control the weather."

"What about him?"

"He wasn't too happy when Leonard interrupted his fight with the Flash. He told me to hand over Leonard or he'd kill the both of us. So, I did. That was this morning so he's probably already dead." Lisa stared at her biological father for another moment before shutting down the cold gun. She spun on her heels and banged once on the door. Cisco opened it right away and so she marched past, pushing the cold gun against the Flash's chest as she went.

"Mark Mardon has him," she said past the lump in her throat as she marched away from them in search of some fresh air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this and chapter 20 were one chapter and not two but I no longer like my idea for an epilogue so I cut that out and I felt like I was cheating you guys if this was suddenly going to be the last chapter. Anyway, if I get plenty of comments then I'll try to post the final chapter tomorrow (I'm a little busy so it might end up being Friday instead.)


	20. Cold and Gold

Twenty minutes had passed since Lisa had stormed out of STAR Labs and Barry was trying to keep his mind busy. They'd played the camera footage for Lewis' cell and heard _exactly_ what Lisa had dragged out of him… no wonder she'd left; Barry felt like running away too.

The words _'he's dead'_ raced around and around in his head and he didn't want to believe them but he couldn't stop fretting that _maybe_ it was the truth. He, Cisco, and Caitlin were all looking into ways to find Mardon and Len but the task so far had been slow going.

Caitlin had the idea to talk to Joe and see if anyone at the station knew anywhere that Mardon might be hiding out but just before she rang him she turned to look at Barry.

"Shall I also let him know to come get Lewis?" Cait asked and Barry thought for a moment before he nodded, anything that he has to say he had already told them.

"Yeah. Can you fill him in on the Len situation too? He'll need all the information to give to the leads on the case so that they already know everything Len did was under duress when he comes forward." Caitlin nodded and looked like she was going to respond but was interrupted by a new presence in the room.

 _"Barry?"_ The voice said and all three of them turned to look towards the entrance of the room where Lisa was stood, her mouth agape as she stared at Barry who was still wearing the Flash suit but with the cowl down.

"Lisa…" Cisco muttered.

"We thought you'd left," Caitlin finished for him and Lisa blinked her eyes a few times before answering.

"I did. I just needed some fresh air… I'm sure you heard what he said." They all nodded and the room was silent again. Lisa cleared her throat. "So, you're the Flash… Does Lenny know?"

"Yeah, he found out."

"Jackass… I can't believe he never told me," she laughed quietly, though it sounded a little bit sad. "So, how are we going to find him?"

"We're working on it…" Barry said, wishing that he had a real answer.

"Actually," Cisco said suddenly and that's when Barry realised that he had started typing again. "I may have just found the answer for that. Satellites."

"What do you mean?" Barry asked at the same time that Caitlin exclaimed: "oh, that's perfect."

"I'm lost," Lisa said slowly. "How are we going to use satellites to find Lenny?"

"Well, Weather Wizard creates storms out of nowhere," Cisco explained as he continued typing. "Rain and snow clouds, lightning, tornados… they're all visible on satellites."

"And it will be easy to identify when the storms have moved with the wind or when they've just appeared out of thin air," Caitlin continued for him. "Meaning, that if we look through enough footage of Central over the past few weeks, we should be able to come up with a list of places where Mardon has been."

"And hopefully one place will come up multiple times," Cisco concluded.

"His hideout," Barry muttered.

"Exactly."

"But how will you get satellite footage?" Lisa questioned and Cisco smiled at her.

"Already got it," he answered. A few more taps on his keyboard and the live footage appeared on the large monitor in the room.

"You hacked into a satellite already?" Barry asked, shocked, as he moved closer to the screen. "How?"

"I'm just that good."

"… Felicity helped you, didn't she?"

"I'm offended by how little you think of my skills," Cisco rebuffed. "But yes, she may have left some software around that is capable of hacking into satellites." Cisco showed Barry what to look for on the feed and then Barry spent the next five minutes looking through the past month of footage and coming up with a list of places in Central City where Mardon could be hiding out.

He organised the list so that the ones with the most reoccurrences of random weather patterns were the first places that he would look. Barry stood up from the computer and was just getting ready to pull on his cowl and run to the first place on his list when Lisa stepped forward.

"I'm coming with you," she insisted and Barry shook his head.

"It's too dangerous."

"I don't care. He's my brother and he's spent the past two weeks putting himself in danger to protect me. I'm coming with you." Lisa picked the cold gun up off the desk and zipped up her leather jacket. "Now let's go." Barry looked to Cisco and Cait for advice and they both shrugged so he nodded.

"Fine. Brace yourself," he warned. Then Barry grabbed Lisa and he started to run. Lisa staggered as they came to a stop in front of the first building, a rundown farmhouse. This location had had the most reoccurring bouts of randomised weather in all of Central over the past week and it was right on the outskirts of the city, a whole mile away from any other buildings. It was a perfect location for Mardon to hide out and there would be no witnesses if he brought a kidnap victim here.

Barry tried to keep his hopes low so that he wouldn't be disappointed if this wasn't the place where Mardon had taken Len, but it was a difficult task. Barry and Lisa both crept closer to the building and peered in through the dusty window. It didn't seem like anyone had been in there for years and Barry's heart sank a little bit.

"Do you see anything?" Cisco asked through the comms.

"Not yet," Barry whispered back. "We're going to check inside." Barry moved to the front door and vibrated the door handle until it unlocked. The door creaked open, making Barry wince, but once they were inside it became very obvious that no one had been in this house for a very long time.

The ground floor had a very open layout and so they could see right away that Len wasn't there. But there were two more floors and, so to cover his bases, Barry told Lisa to wait by the door and then he sped through all the rooms of the house. He was back at the front door within seconds and shook his head sadly.

"He's not here," Lisa said but then looked pointedly out the window at the back of the house and Barry's eyes followed that direction to see a large barn set a bit further back from the road with a truck parked right in front of the doors, the flickering of a light could be seen through one of the windows. "But maybe he's _there_."

Barry instantly flashed himself and Lisa closer. It looked less rundown than the farmhouse, as though it had been rebuilt recently. There were several windows dotted around the barn that were at head height and so they carefully peered inside. Lisa gasped next to him as they saw a beaten and bruised Len bleeding on the ground and tied to a wooden support beam. Lisa moved instantly towards the door and Barry had to stop her before she charged inside.

Last year he would have rushed inside just as eagerly as Lisa was about to, but Oliver's lessons had really stuck with him (just like those arrows had stuck into his back) and now he took in his surroundings completely before acting.

"Mardon might be in there," he whispered to Lisa. His truck was parked right outside the door, after all, and there wasn't really anything nearby that he could have walked to.

"Well, so is my brother!" She whispered back and pulled herself out of Barry's grasp.

"There's a side door. You wait there while I go in through the front. If Mardon isn't in there then I can grab Len and bring him out. If he _is_ in there then I'll draw his attention while you go in through the side and rescue Len. Got it?" He explained the plan, and after a tense second, Lisa nodded. She powered up the cold gun and took off, around to the side entrance.

Once she was out of view, Barry pushed the barn doors open. The second that he stepped inside there was a loud bang and he had to dodge a bullet coming his way. He dodged one more bullet and took cover in an alcove.

"Don't be like that, Flash. Let's have some fun!" Barry looked around the corner of the alcove and saw Mardon crouching on the upper tier of the barn. Barry's eyes went from Mardon to Len who was lying unmoving on the floor. He noticed Len's chest rising and falling a little bit and he sighed in relief, he was still breathing.

Now all he had to do was draw Mardon down from the top tier and close enough that he wouldn't notice when Lisa came in.

"Thanks for giving me a heads up that you're here, by the way!" Mardon shouted down. "That lighting of yours is very obvious," Barry grumbled to himself and ran to the opposite side of the room so that he could get a better look at where Mardon was. He was at quite the advantage point up there and so Barry didn't think he'd come down freely... unless it suddenly became too unsafe to be up there.

Barry would have to work up a little bit of speed and so he turned and ran out of the barn. He ran for a few seconds before turning on his heels and running as fast as he could back and punched the main supporting beam that helped to hold up the upper tier of the barn. The wood cracked from the force of the blow.

"Shit!" He heard Mardon curse as the building shook. Suddenly there was a strong gust of wind being blown in from the open door, strong enough to knock Barry back against the far wall of the barn. When Barry looked up, he saw that Mardon was using the wind to fly down from the top tier to the ground floor.

Barry charged Mardon and punched him but the wind instantly knocked Barry back across the room again. Barry continued to lead Mardon further and further away from Len as they fought. Once he was far enough away, Barry saw Lisa open the side door and sneak in to grab her brother, who had now woken up and was pushing himself into a sitting position on the floor.

Mardon waved his hands in Barry's direction and Barry was just barely able to dodge a bolt of lightning. Out of the corner of his eye, Barry saw Lisa use the cold gun to break the chains around Len's arms that were keeping him tied to one of the beams. Barry flashed from where he had fallen onto the ground and attempted to punch Mardon again so that he wouldn't notice the sudden light in the room, but Barry got blown forcefully away by the wind before he could land the punch.

Mardon stalked closer with a smile on his face but then he was forced across the room, his back covered in ice. Barry looked up and saw Len standing, leaning heavily on Lisa's shoulder, and holding the cold gun which he had taken from his sister to shoot Mardon.

Len offered Barry a weak smile despite the pain he was obviously in.

"Is he out cold?" Len drawled and Barry laughed despite himself. Barry started to move towards Len to hug him but then he heard Mardon groan on the floor, waking up, and he knew he had to deal with him first.

"Rest here. I'll be right back," he said and then Barry grabbed Mardon and flashed away with him, dropping him into one of the cells at STAR Labs. When he returned back to the barn Len was standing up a little straighter and no longer leaning against Lisa. Barry instantly pulled him into a hug. He buried his nose against Len's neck, breathing him in and relaxing as Len's strong arms wrapped around his waist.

"I love you," Len whispered against Barry's neck and Barry smiled. "I was starting to think that I'd ever get the chance to tell you. But I do, I love you."

"I love you too," Barry whispered in reply. He wanted to speak it louder, wanted to shout it for everyone to hear, but he feared that if he said it any louder then his voice would crack from all of the emotions that he could feel inside of his chest.

Len and Barry clung onto each other for a little longer before Lisa coughed awkwardly behind them. They pulled away and then Barry put his hands on Len's and Lisa's shoulders.

"Come on, let's get you to Caitlin. She can patch you up," he said to Len before speeding them back to STAR Labs.

[] [] []

Lisa left the medical room to go get some coffee from the kitchen down the hall. She'd missed her brother so she wanted to stay by his side and make sure that he was okay, but right now it looked like Lenny needed to spend some time with his boyfriend. She was okay with that; they probably had a lot to sort through.

Cisco was already pouring himself a cup of coffee when she walked into the room and so he graciously poured her one too, a large smile on his face.

"So, how'd it feel to be a hero?" He asked her and she laughed. She wouldn't quite call herself a hero… but honestly, helping her brother had felt _good_. She'd felt lost for so long, drifting without a purpose ever since she quit ice skating, but doing something good had felt right. She didn't know how to put that into words and so she just smiled.

She followed Cisco back to the cortex and collapsed into one of the seats as she sipped her coffee. The cold gun was resting on the table again and Lisa eyed it as she thought. She stood up and ran her middle finger over the chamber of the gun.

"Do you think you could make me one of these? But not cold… something more pretty," she said thoughtfully and Cisco frowned at her. "Like gold."

"Why do you want a gun?"

"Because I liked helping and I want to keep doing it," she stated confidently and Cisco beamed up at her.

"…I think I could work something out. If you go on a date with me." Lisa looked from the cold gun to Cisco's eyes and she smiled.

"I'd like that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're sitting there and thinking that this fic could do with one more chapter then you're right. But I'm not going to write it. Instead I'm going to do a sequel :) I've promised to finish my Sterek and Destiel WIPs before starting another multichapter fic so it's going to have to wait about a month, so check back middle-end of September.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this fic and I just want you to know that I've appreciated all of your comments and kudos more than you realise. I know this is probably a little redundant to say but please, please, leave a comment :) even if you're reading this years in the future and think that I couldn't care about a comment on a fic that I wrote years ago, I do care and I'd really love to see that inbox notification.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr ([pieprincess-andthe-fallenangel](http://pieprincess-andthe-fallenangel.tumblr.com/)) and Instagram ([sour_wolfie](https://www.instagram.com/sour_wolfie/?hl=en))


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